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How do schools prepare you towards opening (or working in partnership) a private practice? Are there "business and management" or "insurance" classes that help with this?
Schools preparing you for a private practice.
- Thread starter jc812
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HAHAHAHHAHAHAHA. I wish.
You don't need them.
Work in a PP after you graduate and you will learn mostly everything. Other then that, invest in those "For Dummies" books.
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😕And you know that how??? Please tell me you're not being serious.
If being a successful private practice owner was as easy as working in PP for awhile and buying a few "For Dummies" books - everybody would own a practice and be a millionaire. Learning how to properly bill and code and handle the intricacies of staff management, accounting, and investing are skills that can take years (if not your entire working lifetime) to master.
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There are extensive courses offered at ICO on business management:
courses:
-The business of optometry
-Starting a practice
-Private practice clerkship, where you are paired over the summer break with a current successful private practice optometrist, and learn about all the business aspects of owning a practice
-Coding, Billing, and Reimbursement
-Planning/Managing debt and career goals
others:
Private practice club - which you can join once you enter. it "brings in guest speakers who discuss opportunities, challenges, and solutions in private practice. the clubs pays careful attention to the real nuts and bolts details that make practices financially successful"
Annual Practice opportunities symposium - again opportunity to hear guest speakers (from private, commercial, va etc) and ask questions, and for networking purposes
courses:
-The business of optometry
-Starting a practice
-Private practice clerkship, where you are paired over the summer break with a current successful private practice optometrist, and learn about all the business aspects of owning a practice
-Coding, Billing, and Reimbursement
-Planning/Managing debt and career goals
others:
Private practice club - which you can join once you enter. it "brings in guest speakers who discuss opportunities, challenges, and solutions in private practice. the clubs pays careful attention to the real nuts and bolts details that make practices financially successful"
Annual Practice opportunities symposium - again opportunity to hear guest speakers (from private, commercial, va etc) and ask questions, and for networking purposes
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Part of the problem in this area is that it is really something that needs to be learned by doing. There is only so much you can learn from courses, or reading books or discussing with other ODs. Another problem is that billing and coding and things like that vary from region to region in the country. For example, certain medical insurers may reimburse fundus photos as a unilateral procedure and as such it needs to be ordered and billed accordingly. Other carriers may reimburse as a bilateral procedure. That's the kind of thing they don't teach you in school and it's probably a waste of time if they did because it constantly changes anyways.
For me personally, I know a few things about billing and coding, accounting etc. etc. But I hire people to handle them for me. There is only so much you can do on your own and just like in every part of your life, having experts handle things that you aren't good at, or can't devote enough time to is the way to go.
Lol, I was serious to the point where I had 0% uncertainty in my answer. I don't have anything which would back up my answer, but logically, attending lectures on management and what not which will only mildly educate you. Books/seminars will not guarantee anything, hence a waste of time.
OD's are trained to be primary eye care doctor's, not marketing freaks who will net 1 mil his/her first year as a pp. Get other people to do that for you, and the best way to do that is to learn from the seniors. Even with that, nothing can be guaranteed, sure there's some sort of science involved in the amount of success financially but most of it comes from luck.
If I were currently an OD, I personally would not want to do
any of the "billing and coding, accounting etc. etc" if I had the choice.That just seems EXTREMELY boring.
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OD School does very little to teach the students about private practice. I graduated last May from ICO and am now in private practice. I joined my father in practice and we just opened a second office months ago. I have no idea what I'm doing. I constantly am calling other offices, my accountant, consultants, and friends to get some idea about handle X, Y, and Z. From taxes to billing to staff. (P.S. Staff is the worst part.)
I wish I would be at ICO now, b/c they now have a program of classes that you can take over the 4 years and if you take them all, you get a certificate in buissness. Before they had a few classes, but none of them built on each other and they were mostly just a doc who was in private practice talking you to you. They gave some insight, but not enough. Now some of the classes are taught by business profs. It won't give you all the answers, but at lease you will have a background to fall onto.
The best thing you can do is get some leadership books. Learning how to motivate the staff to accept change is huge.
I wish I would be at ICO now, b/c they now have a program of classes that you can take over the 4 years and if you take them all, you get a certificate in buissness. Before they had a few classes, but none of them built on each other and they were mostly just a doc who was in private practice talking you to you. They gave some insight, but not enough. Now some of the classes are taught by business profs. It won't give you all the answers, but at lease you will have a background to fall onto.
The best thing you can do is get some leadership books. Learning how to motivate the staff to accept change is huge.
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SCO has a new center they just opened up not too long ago for students to learn about managing their practice.
http://hayescenter.sco.edu/
The description says: One of the first of its kind, the center will focus on teaching independent optometrists how to manage the business side of their practice, strategic planning, budgeting, overhead control and increasing profitability.
I'm not a student yet so I only know as much about it as the website says. 😳
http://hayescenter.sco.edu/
The description says: One of the first of its kind, the center will focus on teaching independent optometrists how to manage the business side of their practice, strategic planning, budgeting, overhead control and increasing profitability.
I'm not a student yet so I only know as much about it as the website says. 😳
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OPTOMETRIST - Wharton Executive Education
http://executiveeducation.wharton.u...ealth-Care/chief-exec-optometrist-program.cfm
I believe its only a 4 day course but Wharton is one of the top Business Schools in the country..... it should prove to be valuable throughout your career and worth the investment of your time and money. I do realize there is no substitute for experience but this provides a good foundation.
http://executiveeducation.wharton.u...ealth-Care/chief-exec-optometrist-program.cfm
I believe its only a 4 day course but Wharton is one of the top Business Schools in the country..... it should prove to be valuable throughout your career and worth the investment of your time and money. I do realize there is no substitute for experience but this provides a good foundation.
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Staffing issues are by far and away the biggest problem in ANY business and certainly in optometric practices. The mistake that many ODs make is multifold:
Firstly, they suffer from the midas touch syndrome, meaning that too many of them feel that only THEY can do certain tasks or at the very least no one else can do certain tasks as well as THEY can. This is false.
Secondly, optomerists like to skimp on staff. They like to pay staff as little as possible, and they provide limited training which usually consists of on-the-job training in which a new hire follows around the last person that was hired for a few days before being told "do this." This is also a mistake. Your staff has to be your biggest investment because they will absolutely make or break your business. If you pay peanuts, you are going to get monkeys.
Staff have to be well trained, and then to put in bluntly they have to be treated like children. That sounds very condescending and I don't mean it to come out that way, but let me give you a few examples:
When I was about 11 years old, I had a paper route that I would do when I got home from school. If I hurried quickly, I could get it done in time to watch the Transformers on TV. Of course, in the winter time I had on a lot of winter clothing so I would quickly rush home, rip off all my winter clothes and fling them in every direction before plopping myself in front of the TV. My mother, after getting fed up with it would greet me at the door and if I went through this routine, she would make me get COMPLETELY dressed again, go back outside, come back in and take my winter clothes off and hang them up before sitting down to watch TV. Of course, this always resulted in an argument which I never won, and always wasted about 15 minutes of the show. It took only a couple of days of this routine before I made sure that I hung my clothes up BEFORE I sat down at the TV. I'm proud to say that to this day, I hang my jacket up. (My wife however, still has issues with my socks at the foot of the bed.)
In any event, with staff it's the same way. You have to DEMAND what you expect and then DEMAND that they do it. I had one staff member who kept forgetting to enter the date on patient exam forms. I told her twice to not forget, which she always apologized for and promised to make sure the date was entered. After it happened again, I would buzz the front desk to have her come to the exam room, I would politely give her the cart and tell her that the form needs to be filled out before I can examine the patient. The first couple of times I did this, she was annoyed and her attitude was of course "why can't HE just fill in the date?" The answer of course is that I'M PAYING YOU A BUNCH OF MONEY PER HOUR TO FILL IN THE DATE SO FILL IN THE G*D DAMN DATE! After a couple of times of this, the date gets filled in now without fail. This is just one of many examples I can give you.
So again, you DEMAND what you want and eventually they get the mesage. If they don't, they get fired and no hard feelings, but I need things done a certain way and if you can't do it, find another job. This doesn't in any way mean that I'm a tyrant or a pain in the *** to work for. Being a tyrant gets you nowhere. Being a tyrant means that people will do the absolute bare minimum required to just shut you the hell up which is not condusive to success for anyone.
DEMAND what you want from your staff. I expect my staff to roller skate accross a mine field to get me a Hershey Bar if I ask for it. You should all expect nothing less. Don't be their friends.
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I couldn't agree more KHE.
I own a private practice with about 8 FT staff, and beyond a doubt, staffing is the biggest headache I encounter. KHE is correct....don't form friendships with staff. Additionally, never expect that the average employee cares as much about your practice as you do. Decide what you want from your staff, and then demand it. Don't micromanage, but be carefull about giving staff too much "power", as many will use it for evil, instead of good. What I mean is, if you give one of your staff, say an optician, "ownership" of the dispensary, they may do a great job, but they will be bossy and intimidating to other staff members, creating disharmony. Always remember that despite the skill-set, or age of an employee, they may not have the emotional maturity to handle significant autonomy. Just my thoughts.
I own a private practice with about 8 FT staff, and beyond a doubt, staffing is the biggest headache I encounter. KHE is correct....don't form friendships with staff. Additionally, never expect that the average employee cares as much about your practice as you do. Decide what you want from your staff, and then demand it. Don't micromanage, but be carefull about giving staff too much "power", as many will use it for evil, instead of good. What I mean is, if you give one of your staff, say an optician, "ownership" of the dispensary, they may do a great job, but they will be bossy and intimidating to other staff members, creating disharmony. Always remember that despite the skill-set, or age of an employee, they may not have the emotional maturity to handle significant autonomy. Just my thoughts.
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KHE'e example is excellent about the date. I, like all doctors I think, ask the staff to do lensometry on all new patient's glasses before I get in the room. My father always did that himself. When I got there I ask them to do it, and they forgot 9 out of 10 times. So at first I just did it and would mention it once in a while that I would really like them to do that for me. Well, after about 2 weeks of this, I finally just came out the room, put them glasses on the table and said, "Please do this and bring them back to me." I had to do this about 4 times before they finally got the hint that I was not going to keep doing it my self.
The "Treat them like children" example is right on. If you yell, you get nothing, but you have to make them learn.
The "Treat them like children" example is right on. If you yell, you get nothing, but you have to make them learn.
