Demand for services in optometric practices
February 3rd, 2008 by Tannus Quatre PT, MBAThis article from Optometric Management suggests that an oversupply of eye care practitioners coupled with low patient loyalty can be a recipe for low demand for services in some markets. The good news is that by creating a higher perceived value for optometric services, patients will pay more, keeping the bottom line healthy for practice owners and managers.
While many practices suffer from lack of demand, anemic fees, and saturation by vision plans, let’s be clear that not all practices have those problems. In every region of the U.S., in every type of market and in all kinds of local economies, we can find ophthalmic practices that thrive. These practices have full appointment schedules and they charge fairly high fees. They take some vision plans, but they are not dominated by them because they also have some private pay and they bill medical plans as well. They have a reputation as the best eye care provider in town. Practice owners really do have options for the destiny of their practices. There may not be enough patient demand for all practices to be busy, but there is enough for yours to be busy.
Tags: Optometry Links