OD Best Practices

A Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is a measure of performance that can tell how successful a practice is in achieving their goals in specific areas. You can measure your employees’ attendance, patient capture rates, website traffic, profitability, social media insights, and more. There are hundreds of data points that you can measure in your office every minute of every day.

The VSP Interface in Officemate has come a long way from when I implemented it three years ago. You can find the latest VSP Interface checklist on page 483 of Officemate Administration v12.0.3 Guide . The newest implementation method provided by Officemate is a module called the VSP Setup Assistant and it walks you through each step to get VSP Interface up and running. If you look at the checklist, lens setup is 70% of the VSP Setup Assistant, so using Lens Loader properly is essential to proper VSP Interface implementation. The VSP Setup Assistant is a stripped-down, guided version of properly setup your lenses in Officemate. I want to show you how to properly use the actual Lens Loader feature.

On a podcast of the Power Hour, Dr. Gary Gerber discusses the 4patientcare, DemandForce, SolutionReach and Websystems - ALL on the same episode ! This podcast has a lot of good information for those shopping for a patient communication tool. I have hands-on experience with Websystems3 , DemandForce , and SolutionReach ( no affiliate links here ) in an optometric practice workflow and they are all powerful platforms that provide an opportunity for streamlining how you communicate with your patients via phone, email, and text messaging. Although I have not personally used 4PatientCare , I did do a demo and I know many ODs who use it effectively.

How do you know that your important management duties are being performed in your practice? No matter the skill or experience, there are many factors that can cause an individual to forget to do a task. We are only human. Checklists Many optometric practices feel that they don’t need checklists for routine tasks. But in the event a task is forgotten, who is held accountable? How do you prevent that task not being forgotten again? Having a meaningful checklist for the most common administrative duties can improve efficiency by preventing backlogged tasks, and keep your practice on track by consistently monitoring the necessary systems. While researching the job duties/descriptions checklists on Review of Optometry Business and Primary Eyecare Network , it made me think -- while a procedural manual will ensure that your staff does certain tasks uniformly and a job description checklist ensures that they are able to do it, how do you ensure that they are being done when th

Categorizing in your Practice Management (PM) Software is a method in which you group products and services with other similar products and services for reporting purposes. In Officemate , they call it Financial and Production Groups and in CrystalPM , it’s classified as a Category . For all intents and purposes, we will use category and group interchangeably.

Looking to create your own Procedure Manual? In my last article, A "Clickable" Procedure Manual ,  I showed you how a clickable manual could be used in your office.  This guide will show you how you can make a procedure manual from scratch using Google Documents. It is a fairly simple (but lengthy) process and you will need to be familiar with my previous Guide on Making a Guide on Google Docs  before proceeding. Click to Download or Print your FREE Guide: 4 Steps to Creating Your Procedure Manual in Google Docs

***Update April 18,2016*** Learn how to make your own! A new post on 4 Steps to Creating your Procedure Manual in Google Docs I recently read an article by Neil B. Gailmard, OD on Your Office Procedure Manual (2010) which has a lot of good tips on: Why you should have a procedure manual How to Start a Manual What to Exclude What you might Include However, I did not agree with the line in his last paragraph where he states that, “every office is so different that I strongly recommend that you write your own from scratch.”  It’s true, every office has their own unique workflow- but every office shares the ability to categorize duties by either patient workflow and/or department . Think about all the duties in your practice.  They can either involve interaction with a patient or a specialized duty performed by a department in your practice.  Although these duties may coincide in both patient workflow and department, categorizing them in this manner will force yo

Applying Your Key Metrics Patient Communication Tools Valuations The Key Formulas Using the Formulas Applying Your Key Metrics Almost any financial decision in your office can be made with the assistance of your Key Metrics ( Spreadsheet Project ). If you have these figures, then it is as simple as knowing which numbers are relevant and applicable to these decisions.   In future following articles, I will be showing you how to Calculate Your ROI in various aspects of your office, such as:  Patient Communication Tools , Diagnostic Equipment , Ophthalmic Lenses Lab Stock , etc… using your Key Metrics !

Introduction Accountability 3 Metrics to Measure Doctor Performance in a Multiple Doctor Practice Spreadsheet Introduction After using my: MBA Key Metrics Spreadsheet several times, I have come to realize two things: 1.  It does NOT prioritize Recommended Actions in terms of highest opportunity .    Because of this, I am working on an auto-prioritization algorithm in my next FREE version, to highlight those of greatest impact to your practice. 2.  “Comparing the usage of PAL, AR, high-index and photochromic lenses to industry norms” will almost always populate as a recommended action.  The MBA recommends that most practices review this, regardless of how well your practice is doing. Accountability If all areas of a practice management software is filled in properly as structured data, then accountability is established.  This accountability is what is used for fine-tuning your practice, for

for Small Optometric / Medical Practices The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is as much about controlling human risk factors as it is addressing technological threats.  Most people are under the impression that by just implementing a certain security technology they can cover themselves in a HIPAA audit.  That is incorrect.  HIPAA Compliance can’t be attained by just integrating a technology.  You need perform ALL of the following: Integrate technological solutions that can align with your HIPAA Security Plan (i.e. firewall, software, locks, assets lists, etc…) Address the human risk factors in implementing this technology (i.e. if using encrypted e-mail, how will staff verify patient identities) Address security flaws and vulnerabilities that may arise from using a specific integration (i.e. patches for firewalls, Windows Updates, virus definition updates, wireless penetration testing) Enforce your sanction policy in your office.  Ke