Lecture Notes
Welcome to the Management & Business Academy ™
The Management & Business Academy™ (MBA) for Eye Care Professionals was created by CIBA VISION and Essilor
to help you to succeed in the business aspects of your practice.
Over the past seven years, more than 2,000 eye care professionals have attended MBA symposia—and become
MBA graduates who continue to take part in this far-reaching, practice-building program.
Here at the MBA, you will hear presentations from some of the most experienced eye care practitioners in our
profession. You will take part in a breakout session where you can share your own insights, pose questions and
explore issues that affect your practice. Then, when you return to your practice, you can apply the strategies for
success that you acquire here.
Included in this booklet are learning objectives and key take-aways from a comprehensive curriculum that we hope
will serve as an essential guide in your continued success!
Dwight H. Akerman, OD, FAAO
Rod Tahran, OD, FAAO
Director of Professional Affairs &
Vice President Professional Relations
Programs
Essilor
CIBA VISION
Managing Finances to Increase Practice Equity
Overview
A clinical practice lies
within a business practice.
The practice that provides
the best business care
generally provides the best
patient care.
Learning Objectives
Mark R. Wright, OD, FCOVD
Participants will learn how
to focus on both spheres
of their total practice:
clinical and business.
1) Background concepts
• Your business practice impacts your clinical practice.
• Measurement is the beginning point of positive change.
• Practice Management Rule #1: To manage you must measure.
• When you measure, things get better.
2) Revenue
• Total Practice Productivity Metrics
o Gross revenue per exam
o Exams per OD hour
o Gross revenue per staff hour
o Gross revenue per OD Hour
o Complete exams per 100 active patients
o Gross revenue per square foot of office space
• Revenue Sources
o Revenue sources pie chart
o Annual revenue growth
o Percent of complete eye exams by type
o Percent of exams as a part of managed vision care plans
o Medical eyecare visits percent of total patient visits
o Medical eyecare visits by type
o Source of payments
3) Management Processes
• Best practices
• Product management
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Notes:
o Eyewear
o Spectacle lenses
o Frames
o Piano sunglasses
o Contact lenses
• Staffing
Notes:
4) Expenses
• Cost of goods
• Non-OD, non-in-house lab staff
• General overhead
• Occupancy
• Equipment
• Marketing
• Interest
5) Net
To contact Dr. Wright:
mwright@pathways-o.com
www.mba-ce.com
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Leading Staff to Excellence
Overview
Why did the last three staff
members leave your office?
In most cases it was not
due to a lack of ability that
caused the breakup, but
rather it was an inability to
work together as a team.
Did everyone breathe a
sigh of relief when the last
person left the office? Were
Carole Burns, OD, FCOVD they causing strife? This
scenario can be avoided by
understanding how to manage your staff by understanding
distinct personality types.
Learning Objectives
Participants will learn to identify personality types and to
manage staff according to how well those types match
up with various tasks. All aspects of staff hiring, firing and
management will be addressed.
Identify staff personalities:
Personality Plus by Florence Littauer
Four personalities
• Powerfuls: Like control and make quick decisions
• Perfects: Like detail and spend time analyzing before
making decisions
• Playfuls: Love people and love to have fun
• Peacefuls: Avoid conflict and are excellent mediators
Determine which personality is best
at what position
Receptionist: The playful will be smiling and looking forward
to meeting each person coming through the door.
Office Manager: The powerful loves control and needs
achievement and loyalty.
Bookkeeper: Perfects are excellent at detail.
Optometric Assistant: Peacefuls are excellent at
making sure patients are happy.
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Notes:
Take-aways
• You can be annoyed by the weakness of a personality or
embrace the strengths.
• When you place each staff member where their strengths
can be used effectively, then we can all begin to work
together better as a team.
Notes:
To contact Dr. Burns:
Burns.10@osu.edu
www.mba-ce.com
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Exceeding Patient Expectations and Driving Practice Productivity
Overview
Practitioners invited to
attend an MBA conference
have already established an
excellent practice, clinically
and financially. This course
seeks to challenge the
attendees’ existing practice
management strategies and
assist them toward
the goal of creating
additional patient demand.
Neil Gailmard, OD, MBA, FAAO
The first half of the course
focuses on the role of customer service as a tool to building
patient loyalty. The second half presents an innovative
model for clinical operations that maximizes patient flow and
practice productivity.
Learning Objectives
Participants will be guided through an analysis of their own
practice system as they:
• Increase patient demand by cultivating
word-of-mouth referrals.
• Improve staff performance by developing a positive
office culture.
• Review key investments that build competitive
advantages for the practice.
• Understand the importance of setting fees properly
while providing advanced services and products.
• Learn new ways to increase patient flow without
sacrificing quality of service.
• Increase sales of contact lenses and eyewear.
• Assume the role of CEO of the practice.
Meeting our biggest challenges
• The biggest problem facing optometry
o Lack of patient demand
o Understand that all our other problems are
mere distractions
o Overcome this and our other challenges go away
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Notes:
• Patient loyalty as the key driver of patient demand
o Customer service
o Competitive advantages
Notes:
• Developing an excellent staff
o Organizational culture
o Marketing to your staff as an internal customer
o Job satisfaction
• Office facility
o Instrumentation with good bang for the buck
o Remodeling
o Building ownership
• Service recovery
o Not resolving problems has a huge cost
o Steps for staff
• An overview of generating net income
o Practice positioning and market strategy
o Setting fees
• High-level delegation
o Take a step up on the delegation scale
o Scribes
o Who says patients want an eye exam to take
a long time?
• The role of associate optometrists
o When to bring in an associate
o Our conventional wisdom is wrong in many ways
• Contact lens profitability
o Streamlining contact lens procedures as means of increasing profitability
o A novel approach to drastically increasing contact
lens fitting
• Maximizing profit from optical dispensing
o The importance of OD involvement in management of the optical
o Key points for profitability
• Become the practice CEO
o The reason practices stop growing
o Schedule another management day per week
o The side benefit of compression
o Action plan
To contact Dr. Gailmard:
neil@gailmard.com
www.mba-ce.com
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Creating the High-Performance Practice and
Providing Memorable Patient Experiences
Overview
Increasing your profitability
depends on how you
market your products and
services to your patients.
This two-part lecture looks
at how to position your
practice in the marketplace,
and examines companies
outside of eye care that
position themselves well.
Dave Ziegler, OD, FAAO
Learning Objectives
• Change the way you think: Let go of the old ways of doing
things and embrace new and better ways.
• Recognize the impact that technology and population
trends have on the way we need to practice and how
consumers purchase products and services.
• Learning how one-to-one marketing through patient
lifestyle database management can increase profitability
while enhancing patient loyalty.
o Direct mail with targeted messages
o Personalized recall messages
o Patient newsletters
o Using social media like Facebook
• Improving the patient experience
o Understanding how your patients shop in your
optical dispensary
o Creating the “guest” philosophy
o Creating “Magical Moments”
o Developing your listening skills
o Exceeding expectations
o Using brands to your advantage
• Methods to increase revenue per patient
o Bundling lens options in packages will simplify the buying process for patients and streamlines the presentation process for your staff
o Top/down presentation of lens options
o Recognizing patients who “trade up”
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Notes:
o Opportunities for second-pair sales
o Importance of the patient hand off
o Handling price shoppers
o Frame board management and merchandising
o Dispensing folder that is delivered at dispensing that increases value of eyewear and differentiates
your practice
o Restore contact lens profitability
• Establish substantial contact lens professional fees
• Explaining your professional fees to patients
• Offering competitive prices on lens supplies
• Creating contact lens brochures that explain the options
available to the patient
Action plan
Do one thing in each area
- One-to-one marketing
- Improving the patient experience
- Increasing revenue per patient
Notes:
To contact Dr. Ziegler:
dziegler@ameritech.net
www.mba-ce.com
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Delivering Persuasive Patient Presentations
Overview
Gary Gerber, OD
It’s where “the rubber
meets the road.” It’s that
point in your examination
where you explain your
clinical findings to your
patient and ask them to
commit to something –
that would be a
commitment to upgrade
their contact lens modality,
progressive lens type or
schedule and appointment
for a dry eye evaluation.
What, when and how you deliver your case presentation
can make the difference between “Yes, doctor that’s a
great idea,” and “May I have my prescription?”
Of course, a staff that doesn’t support your
recommendations surely will torpedo your best presentation
efforts. “Oh, you don’t really need those expensive contact
lenses” is heard in more offices than any of us would like
to admit.
Learning Objectives
Participants will be able to:
• Engage staff members and show them the “big picture” vision of the practice.
• Use staff motivation techniques.
• Understand the core emotional drivers that cause
patients to buy products and services.
• Succinctly and effectively deliver credible and actionable
case presentations.
Getting staff on the same page
Mission statement
Best practices for hiring
“Clever Hans”
Pygmalion effect
Asia & Caico effect
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Notes:
What are we selling?
Ferrari
Revlon
Hummer H2
Contact lenses
Progressive lenses
Notes:
Why focus on “Case Presentation” at all?
Words to avoid
Techniques to avoid
Strategies to use
Assumptive sale
Permission statements
Four “R’s”
To contact Dr. Gerber:
DrGerber@PowerPractice.com
www.mba-ce.com
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