LET’S BE HONEST about something: There are patients in your office who really do not like you all that much. They come to see you because you accept their insurance, but that’s all. They do not buy contact lenses or spectacles from you. If you suggest a product like a warm compress or lid scrub that you sell just slightly above your cost, they will leave with your recommendation and go purchase a similar but inferior product somewhere else, under the impression that you are just trying to make money off them.
Meanwhile, you have other patients who truly value you and your office. When you write a prescription or give them a clinical recommendation, these patients want to purchase from you and do everything in their power to come back to see you for all scheduled follow-ups. They understand that the products that you retail are likely far better than what they can get anywhere else. And, although there may be a slight price increase over what they would pay online, they prefer to support you rather than shopping elsewhere only to save a dollar or two.
There are patients who need specialty care and visit the office more often; they tend to represent a larger financial value to the practice. As a specialist, there may be no one else in your region who can care for them, providing immense professional satisfaction from caring for these patients.
You and your eyecare practice are much more valuable to patients who want and need your care. There is less value for patients who couldn’t care less whom they see.
To better handle these two groups, one might consider categorizing patients. For primary care patients, consider grading them based on the encounter. Did they take your recommendations and move forward with products suggested? If you recommended a dry eye supplement, did they move forward with that with your practice or somewhere else? Did they buy other products from your office? These patients may get an “A” or a “1.”
If a patient has never purchased from your office, returns for encounters every three or four years, and never elects to do the suggested screening encounters, consider giving them a “C” or a “3.” Consider moving to a mandatory screening in your office that costs more than the price of insurance or more than others in your area charge. This will help to create a barrier for the patients who don’t seem to value your practice’s service and only get what their insurance covers.
For patients who may be higher targets, create a spreadsheet. This may be a myopia management list, or for any specialty lens or service offered. As an example, if myopia management patients represent one-fifth of the practice’s total revenue, thus requiring special attention, these patients should not have the same recall and patient encounter schedule as other patients.
Assign someone to manage and care for these special patients. They might receive a special care call occasionally or a holiday card from the practice. You might consider holding A-list special events. There are various possibilities of how you can manage and care for these high-value patients.
Categorizing your patients so that the ones who love you get treated better aligns perfectly with a specialty practice. Do more of what you love and what you excel at, and allow someone else to take care of the patients who may be better suited for another practice. CLS
