In today’s market, making sure your eye care practice runs efficiently can help you to stand out. But what are some steps you can take to increase its efficiency?
There are several options available to help you do this. From data conversion software, to training, to something as simple as identifying the problem areas in your business, you should be aware of the multiple ways you can improve how your practice runs.
Benefits of Having an Efficient Practice
Having a plan to increase your daily efficiency can benefit your practice in several ways. Some of these benefits include:
- Increase number of patients
- Decrease costs
- Optimize operations
These benefits can offer your practice the opportunity to meet your organizational goals, whether it involves opening new locations, implementing new services and offerings, or creating more capital.
Preparing Your Practice
Before you can begin to make your practice more efficient, you must take the following steps to prepare your practice.
Strategic Planning
By participating in strategic planning, you are outlining your business’ purpose. Having a clear plan can:
- Limit distractions
- Direct your decision making
- Focus your attention on what matters most
Benchmark Productivity
To understand how your practice is doing, it is helpful to benchmark it against other similar businesses. These benchmarks can help you determine if your practice is above or below industry standards. Once you have identified this, you can more adequately understand which methods can help improve your efficiency.
Audit Your Practice
To compare your practice to industry benchmarks, you should do a complete audit of it. Specific areas to pay attention to include:
- Patient flow
- Clinic processes and procedures
- Productivity levels
- Schedules
This will help you identify areas of strengths and those that need improvement.
How to Make Your Practice More Efficient
Now that you have identified the specific areas you need to focus on improving, you can learn about some of the tools available to you and your practice.
Implementing the following methods can help your practice by:
- Improving reception efficiency
- Offering a better patient experience
- Freeing up time in staff member’s schedules
Management Software
Incorporating management software into your business can help your practice run smoothly with minimal effort on your end. Depending on the software you choose, you could have access to tools such as invoicing generators, booking systems, and automatic appointment reminders.
Some of the different types of management software that could be used in your practice include:
- Invoicing software
- Scheduling software
- Dispensing software
- Ordering software
- File linking software
- Routing software
At Visual-Eyes, we offer a completely customizable management software package unique to your business, your goals, and your needs. For more information on the Visual-Eyes management software available to you, book a demo with us today.
Data Conversions
Utilizing a data conversion in your business helps you collect all of your patient data in one place. This allows you to spend less time inputting and cross-checking information across different software providers, and more time focused on providing a positive patient experience.
Professional Staff Training
Training staff can be a time-consuming and challenging task. Hiring a third party to complete professional staff training can ensure your staff is aligned on methods and best practices, no matter the growth your clinic faces.
Whether you are opening new locations, transitioning to an online model, or just need a staff refresher; getting professional staff training can improve the efficiency of your practice as a whole.
Now What?
After preparing your practice and incorporating the needed strategies to increase your efficiency, you may ask yourself, “Now what?” Well, in order to keep growing and meeting your goals, you need to measure your success constantly.
The best way to do this is by hiring a professional who can help track your success and outline areas for further improvement, all while communicating with you and your staff every step of the way.
Increasing efficiency is never a one-and-done deal, and requires ongoing audits, training and adjustment.
If you have any questions or concerns regarding how you can increase your eyecare practice’s efficiency, contact us today.
