Reopening may present a substantial opportunity to grow

Pre-pandemic: Coffee stations were common. Reception areas had magazines and chairs placed next to each other. Touting that you spent whatever time was necessary to help a patient was common and seen as a smart marketing statement. Surgical masks and scrubs were worn by surgeons. Cleaning an exam room consisted of emptying the trash can at night and vacuuming once a week. The list goes on . . .

Chances are, several of the above common tasks were important to your patient experience, and if you struggled with the decision to discontinue or modify them, you were in good company with the rest of the country’s O.D.s.

Were all of the above necessary? Did patients comment that they liked having coffee? Did you have quality reading material? Did Google reviews mention that you spent a lot of time with patients, and did patients ever question why you weren’t wearing a mask and scrubs? How many times in your career did patients comment that you did not sterilize a frame before letting them try it on?

EXAMINE “PHASE 2”

Post-pandemic: The pandemic taught us that closing our offices was easier than opening them. Now that the general psyche of the country is pointed to the worst being behind us, “Phase 2” of re-opening is something you should carefully examine — it may present a giant opportunity to differentiate and grow your practice.

Sleepless nights, stress and accelerated aging aside, if you’re like most doctors we helped during COVID-19’s crazy closing/re-opening process, financially you’re probably in a pretty good position. And, you may still be seeing fewer patients per day with less staff and a better bottom line. Of course, you probably have now adopted some of the COVID-19 reopening protocols as standard operating procedure.

The intent here isn’t to tell you to stop wearing a mask, stop disinfecting rooms between patients, and take your coffee maker out of the closet. Those are inherently case-by-case decisions that every practice needs to make individually. How much you decide to “go back to how things were” will likely be based on practice history, staff and patient demographic.

ANALYZE

TAKE ANOTHER LOOK AT ANY CHANGES YOU MADE BECAUSE OF THE PANDEMIC.

 

 

MAKE A DECISION

Rather, my goal here is to get you to be analytical in making those decisions and, more importantly, consciously sit, and make them! The importance of doing so can’t be understated. Consider this analogy from a client’s practice (with fictitious names to illustrate the point).

In 2015, Dr. Junior bought Dr. Senior’s practice, which was a fixture in the community for 25 years. When we questioned Dr. Junior about items like, “Why are you open until 7 p.m. on Thursday night? Why do you book glaucoma follow-up appointments for 30 minutes? And, why are men’s glasses displayed separately from women’s?” Dr. Junior answered as you’d expect: “Because that’s how Dr. Senior did it for 25 years, and I guess it worked OK!”

Condense the above to COVID-19 years. If we were to visit your practice tomorrow and ask, “Why do you disinfect frames after patients wear them, book contact lens checkups for 15 minutes and close for lunch at 1 p.m. when you did none of those things pre-COVID-19,” how would you answer?

Again, the point isn’t to say what you’re now doing is bad or wrong. But, any changes you made because of the pandemic — and you likely don’t realize how many there are — deserve another look and that look should happen now! OM

DR. GERBER is the founder of the Power Practice, a company specializing in making optometrists more profitable. Learn more at powerpractice.com .