discounts for friends
Started by scraders
scraders said:
I'm not sure if your friends want to be "hooked up" with exams, materials, or both, but here are some ideas. For exams, you can write them off completely or else, if they have eye or medical insurance, find a non-threatening diagnosis and collect their co-pay. Most friends won't mind a $20 co-pay for an allergic conjunctivitis check when they know an eye exam at Lenscrafters runs $40-$60, and then you get some money for your time as well.
For instance, I have an MD friend who's a high myope with funny looking discs, so I do GDx routinely. Since I don't want her labelled permanently as a glaucoma suspect, I just write off everything.
Materials are trickier. If you really really like them, you can just charge them your cost for glasses or contacts. Or you can charge cost + 10%/20%/30% or whatever to cover the staff time involved in the order.
If you're in private practice and you write off exams, make sure they're accounted for in your practice management software. This can let you know if your "hook-up" write-offs are getting out of hand.
Last thing to be careful of is your employee discount policy. Employees can get grumpy if they see you routinely giving big discounts to friends that their kids don't even get.
Tom Stickel
Indiana U. 2001
