To Be or Not to Be a Practice Owner
It seems like independent eye doctors had it made back in the 1960s, 1970s or 1980s. The way the older doctors talk, it sounds like all they had to do was graduate from medical school, hang out a shingle and the patients would stream in. Not so fast. While the business and clinical parts make […]
Color and Health
“So and So is the picture of health.” “So and So has a sickly pallor.” This is the 21st century and with all the advances that have taken place in medicine, we still associate certain colors with health or the lack thereof. This is especially true when seeing someone’s face. Aren’t these things as arbitrary […]
Sunday Scaries
Working in or owning an optometric practice can be great. There’s the health and science side which is always evolving and appeals to the learner part of you and there’s the business side that appeals to the creator/builder part of you. Of course, the ever-evolving part of health and science means that you have to […]
Regeneration in the Retina
The human body has an amazing ability to heal itself. If you get a paper cut, the cut heals in seven to ten days. If you get a bruise, it heals within two to four weeks. If you get a broken bone, it takes three to ten weeks to heal. An injury to the retina […]
Independent Practice
American Optometric Association issued a report on the state of optometry in 2013 and they reported that there are over 22,000 optometrists who are owner/operators of an independent practice. Despite the current trends in retail, optometry seems to be the last bastion of the independent ownership. Of course, there is competition from chains, mass retailers […]
Retina Patterns Tell a Story
No one has to sell eye doctors on how cool the human eye is. One interesting area of the eye that is being researched is the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE). This is the layer of cells that is next to the retina. It acts as a conduit between the photoreceptors of the retina and the […]
Training patient facing staff
More often than not, staff members are the first people patients speak with when they come to your practice. Of course, you want your staff to do their tasks and process the patients in an efficient manner, but what is more important? Serving patients or doing the job in an efficient manner? It is more […]
Compassion
An episode of the sitcom, “The Golden Girls” demonstrated what a lack of compassion can do to a patient. Dorothy, one of the characters, was feeling very sick. One doctor dismissed her symptoms as stress related to old age. Dorothy went to another doctor who diagnosed her as having chronic fatigue syndrome and she was […]
Novel Ways to Treat Diabetic Edema
Having diabetes is never a good thing. A person has to monitor blood glucose, take medication, and watch what he or she eats. Diabetes can also wreak havoc with vision. One condition that a diabetic has to be on the lookout for is diabetic edema. Diabetic edema is a result of complications of diabetic retinopathy. […]
Selling to Baby Boomers
It’s likely that Baby Boomers make up the bulk of your customers. There are over 74 million of them in the U.S., they spend the most across all categories, control 70 percent of the disposable income in the U.S. and are expected to inherit $15 trillion dollars over the next 20 years. Today’s seniors aren’t […]