I attend a host of trade shows every year, and I love to walk through the exhibit hall and observe the new technology as well as the way that eyecare providers interact with companies about their innovations. Technology as a whole can have a positive effect on our practices and business; but at times, I find that providers get sucked into buying something without a clear picture of how it is going to fit into their practice.

I see providers who use the perspectives and experiences of colleagues as a reason to buy in. While I was deciding on a piece of equipment a decade ago, a clinician whom I knew walked by and literally said, “That machine prints money.” My perspective on buying the machine was more heavily weighted upon its clinical benefits and on practice implementation, but I see many colleagues get lost in the financial perspective.

How to Choose Equipment

When deciding upon a technology to bring into the office, I find it imperative to look at two key elements. The order of these elements is critical.

Improved Patient Care First, clinicians need to decide whether the innovation will bring better value and care to their patients. Is there a gap in the care that is currently being offered that this diagnostic or treatment modality will solve? Will patients leave the office being better served and in a healthier or better state of being with this addition?

Along with this, success must be defined and measurable. Again, clinicians may look to a colleague who says, “This works well in my practice, and my patients really like it.” But what is the success really measured against? Will the new equipment bring efficiency? Will it diagnose better? Will it provide a better treatment outcome, and how will that be measured? If it is a diagnostic or treatment methodology, I’d encourage you to look to the literature for how the innovation has impacted people in a research setting, then see how you can apply it to your clinical practice setting for the betterment of patients.

Return on Investment Secondly, will there be a positive return on investment (ROI)? Implementing an instrument into the office should not have to cost the office anything over the long term; rather, it should bring about a positive return in one way or another. Some instruments are needed for care but bring no billable revenue (tonometer, auto-refractor, slit lamp); others are billable to the majority of insurance plans and provide billable reimbursements (topography, retinal photography, scleral lenses).

Lastly, we have technology that may have a code, but it is generally not reimbursed by insurance and is private pay to patients (meibography, thermal pulsation, aberration-controlled scleral lenses, intense pulsed light). If a technology does not bring in revenue, it still needs to have a purpose. Adding an additional exam lane may bring the ability to see more patients. Adding an autorefractor may allow you to see patients more efficiently. This can be an improved ROI.

For other innovations, the ROI may need to be considered more tangibly. In our practice, we try to have a positive ROI on innovations within one year (ideally). Here is an example of how to calculate this in your practice.

New dry eye technology: $15,000

Cost to patients: $500 per treatment after cost of goods

Current dry eye patients who need the treatment: 250 patients

Conservative conversion rate: 15% (37 patients)

Estimated revenue from the new technology: 37 x $500 = $18,500

The new technology, with conservative estimates, will yield a positive ROI at the end of the year. In year two, all of the revenue will be profit that can be used to support other areas of the practice.

Choose Wisely

Treatments in our office should not be impulse purchases. Rather, they need to be clinically thought out and relevant and to yield a positive ROI for the practice’s long-term health. CLS