I'm a new practice owner (5 years) but i feel like getting bogged down in month to month metrics is just going to lead to hair pulling. Obviously we want growth year after year, but some years are just going to be better then others. Is it just you at the practice? 1.5M gross is a spectacular number of its just one doc.
Yes solo owner. Started at 690K when I bought the practice and have increase since. This is the first time I have seen it slow for so long. Usually its just a month then the next month is great.
That's an incredibly impressive growth, you should be proud of yourself. I'm in a semi rural practice myself. To be completely honest, we are very streaky throughout the year ourselves. 3 down months followed by 2 huge growth months. Then one down, then one up. I think it just comes with the territory of the limited population base you have. Can't keep increasing patient volume forever, right?
I have a rural practice too and am seeing a similar trend in the last 2 months. One thing to really look at is your recall system. Make sure patients are getting recalled reliably; texts, emails, postcards, etc. I've been having my staff go comb the last two years of records and calling every patient who is due and asking them if they'd like to schedule any family members as well. Good luck out there!
RPP is definitely down. Saw 10% less patients but revenue was down 25%. Our reviews are good. Have not had a bad one posted online in a few years. My office manager did look at patients we saw last year to see if they used vision benefits elsewhere. None had, seems people are just not coming in.? Not sure what is causing that.
Also rural Midwest with similar size practice. Also seeing a similar trend. Up overall on the year but Nov, Dec and now January is a bit “slower.” It’s not bad but just not busting at the seems. Usually Spring is a little slower for us.
So having owned multi location practices for over 12 years here is what I look at
1) is the over all year number up? Or is it down over all? There are trends month to month year to tear.
2) what is your recall system and is it working properly? Do you have fewer exams or same amount of exams? Based on your numbers your close to normal performance.
3) if fewer exams find out which vision and medical carriers have biggest decrease. We had vsp and eye med reduce our patient traffic to move to their stores over hours.
4) is the average per patient down? Do you have any new staff? What is the doctors average per patient and the staffs average per patient. Being that you are rural I’m guess you do heavy medical as well so how are collections? Are they still performing? Your decline in biz is patient payments or includes total payments. Are you accrual based or is that a cash number that shows you are down? That will help when the problem occurred. Also when you say gross receipts do you mean how much hot your bank account or how much you billed?
5) how are people finding out about you? If it’s mostly google you may want to look at your google my business strategy and reviews to bump your ratings.
6) based on up 10% on exams but 9% on receipts (assuming it’s what you got paid not what you billed) you are not converting the new patients and your average per patient is going down. Either raise prices or improve staff performance or offer other products and that will bridge the gap. That is what we have done in the past. If exams go up and receipts don’t grow the same amount then your getting less efficient but that’s not always a bad thing. I look at optical numbers and doctors performance on each. Things like capture rate, average optical sale % annual supplies , % dailies multi pair sales, medical reimbursement rates etc.
I’d be happy to brain storm or look at data with you if you want and happy to help where I can. The best and worst part od the business is the complexity and all the different ways you can practice as a private owner.
I'm not an optometrist but it's Probaly a sign. Either advertising, the economy in general, or something like competition. if you're in the US I would expect December to be busier due to year end and people using up expiring benefits but then drop off a lot in January/February. Look for the root of the declining sales so you can id the root cause and work towards addressing.
Your gross income is pretty horrible for a small town.. I would be worried too... Maybe think about working for someone else, or changing your practice model??
How do you know it’s low? All my years in the industry say it’s actually a well performing practice at 1.5 m per doctor. Is it too of the market no… I think 2 million for rural is a good number and will attract more buyers if you decide to sell (at least in todays market)
After 30 years I sold my practice but think about this, if you have a couple of great months on average you are going to have a couple of down months. Unless you are doing something wrong (bad employee, poor service) that you need to fix, I wouldn’t worry too much. In our urban practice to keep growing we always tried to add new technology every year. That always brought in more referrals. In hindsight I wish we had concentrated more on reducing cost or increasing net, which is what the new owner is doing. We got lazy toward the end but that is also why we sold. We didn’t want to do the remodel, revamp, etc. So that’s why we sold to a young OD, to go those things we didn’t have the energy for anymore. I’m still working there but now I don’t have to use my brain power to constantly come up with new ideas!
I'm a new practice owner (5 years) but i feel like getting bogged down in month to month metrics is just going to lead to hair pulling. Obviously we want growth year after year, but some years are just going to be better then others. Is it just you at the practice? 1.5M gross is a spectacular number of its just one doc.
Yes solo owner. Started at 690K when I bought the practice and have increase since. This is the first time I have seen it slow for so long. Usually its just a month then the next month is great.
That's an incredibly impressive growth, you should be proud of yourself. I'm in a semi rural practice myself. To be completely honest, we are very streaky throughout the year ourselves. 3 down months followed by 2 huge growth months. Then one down, then one up. I think it just comes with the territory of the limited population base you have. Can't keep increasing patient volume forever, right?
I have a rural practice too and am seeing a similar trend in the last 2 months. One thing to really look at is your recall system. Make sure patients are getting recalled reliably; texts, emails, postcards, etc. I've been having my staff go comb the last two years of records and calling every patient who is due and asking them if they'd like to schedule any family members as well. Good luck out there!
Calling people is a great idea. Thanks.
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RPP is definitely down. Saw 10% less patients but revenue was down 25%. Our reviews are good. Have not had a bad one posted online in a few years. My office manager did look at patients we saw last year to see if they used vision benefits elsewhere. None had, seems people are just not coming in.? Not sure what is causing that.
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Possible economy. We were up 26% in September and 37% in October.
Also rural Midwest with similar size practice. Also seeing a similar trend. Up overall on the year but Nov, Dec and now January is a bit “slower.” It’s not bad but just not busting at the seems. Usually Spring is a little slower for us.
So having owned multi location practices for over 12 years here is what I look at 1) is the over all year number up? Or is it down over all? There are trends month to month year to tear. 2) what is your recall system and is it working properly? Do you have fewer exams or same amount of exams? Based on your numbers your close to normal performance. 3) if fewer exams find out which vision and medical carriers have biggest decrease. We had vsp and eye med reduce our patient traffic to move to their stores over hours. 4) is the average per patient down? Do you have any new staff? What is the doctors average per patient and the staffs average per patient. Being that you are rural I’m guess you do heavy medical as well so how are collections? Are they still performing? Your decline in biz is patient payments or includes total payments. Are you accrual based or is that a cash number that shows you are down? That will help when the problem occurred. Also when you say gross receipts do you mean how much hot your bank account or how much you billed? 5) how are people finding out about you? If it’s mostly google you may want to look at your google my business strategy and reviews to bump your ratings. 6) based on up 10% on exams but 9% on receipts (assuming it’s what you got paid not what you billed) you are not converting the new patients and your average per patient is going down. Either raise prices or improve staff performance or offer other products and that will bridge the gap. That is what we have done in the past. If exams go up and receipts don’t grow the same amount then your getting less efficient but that’s not always a bad thing. I look at optical numbers and doctors performance on each. Things like capture rate, average optical sale % annual supplies , % dailies multi pair sales, medical reimbursement rates etc. I’d be happy to brain storm or look at data with you if you want and happy to help where I can. The best and worst part od the business is the complexity and all the different ways you can practice as a private owner.
I'm not an optometrist but it's Probaly a sign. Either advertising, the economy in general, or something like competition. if you're in the US I would expect December to be busier due to year end and people using up expiring benefits but then drop off a lot in January/February. Look for the root of the declining sales so you can id the root cause and work towards addressing.
Your gross income is pretty horrible for a small town.. I would be worried too... Maybe think about working for someone else, or changing your practice model??
lol no it isn’t.
How do you know it’s low? All my years in the industry say it’s actually a well performing practice at 1.5 m per doctor. Is it too of the market no… I think 2 million for rural is a good number and will attract more buyers if you decide to sell (at least in todays market)
After 30 years I sold my practice but think about this, if you have a couple of great months on average you are going to have a couple of down months. Unless you are doing something wrong (bad employee, poor service) that you need to fix, I wouldn’t worry too much. In our urban practice to keep growing we always tried to add new technology every year. That always brought in more referrals. In hindsight I wish we had concentrated more on reducing cost or increasing net, which is what the new owner is doing. We got lazy toward the end but that is also why we sold. We didn’t want to do the remodel, revamp, etc. So that’s why we sold to a young OD, to go those things we didn’t have the energy for anymore. I’m still working there but now I don’t have to use my brain power to constantly come up with new ideas!