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Built on a Foundation of Managed Care, SVS Vision Achieves Growth in Optical Retail
By John Sailer
MT. CLEMENS, Mich.—With its roots as the Sterling Vision insurance company with retail operations catering to union auto workers in Michigan and other states,
SVS Optical now operates 58 optical centers in nine states. As the insurance business shrunk along with the auto industry, "We started to look more and more to retail," said Kenneth Stann, president/CFO, part owner of the company along with Rob Farrell, OD.
Stann, a CPA by profession, got involved in 2002 when the equity firm that had purchased the company from founder Avery Sterling brought him in to sell the business. When deal after deal failed for one reason or another, Stann purchased the company along with Farrell in March of 2007. "I loved the business model after I'd been there for five years and had gotten more and more involved in the operations," Stann told dba.
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Optical Retailers Predict a Strong Year for 2013
How will the economy affect business in 2013, and what impact will health care reform have? The following optical retailers told dba their expectations for the economic climate in 2013 and the effect it might have on their business for the coming year: Judd Sky, President/CEO,
Partners in Vision Inc.; Jeff Press, Vice President, Merchandise and Design,
Luxury Optical Holdings; Mark Johnson, Director of Optical Services,
Virginia Eye Institute; and David H. Hettler, OD,
Drs. May & Hettler, Alexandria, Va.
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Lens Bundling Drives Profits While Reducing Patient and Staff Confusion
By Jay Binkowitz and Evan Kestenbaum, MBA, dba Contributors
The explanation of ophthalmic lenses along with fees has been and continues to be one of the greatest challenges we face, especially as it relates to vision care plans. We tend to go with complex explanations of features and benefits along with "billing language" to explain each "add-on," (a term we dislike), in a way that results in severe patient pushback and lost sales. Billing language is an antagonistic way of beating up our customers with TMI (too much information) in order for us to be able to say we told them everything...whether they wanted to hear it or not. Most of the time it is not.
"Billing language" occurs because that is the way we enter the information into our software system in order to bill the vision plans, but that is not the way we should speak to or explain products, services and fees to patients. Because we do this for our vision plan patients we also abuse our private pay patients the same way.
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Recruiting Online Saves Time and Money While Targeting Just the Right Candidates
By Steven Squires
Online recruitment has revolutionized the way employers in the eyecare industry attract and hire qualified employees. For organizations that need to hire quickly, online recruitment strategies offer scalable, cost-effective solutions for managing the challenges of recruiting.
With more and more people looking online for employment, eyecare organizations are moving away from costly, traditional forms of recruitment and shifting their concentration to recruiting online. The benefits associated with online recruiting are many, but for those employers still considering whether or not to engage in online recruiting, here are a few of them.
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Five Simple Practice Building Ideas
By John Marvin
Since taking over as president/CEO of Texas State Optical, John Marvin has grown the member-owned cooperative to 126 locations and the
10th largest on Vision Monday's Top 50 U.S. Optical Retailers. (Read the
Eye-trepreneur feature about Marvin and Texas State Optical in the Jan. 2013 edition of dba.) In this excerpted presentation from the
Seeing is Believing virtual conference held Jan. 30-31 2013, Marvin presents five simple practice building techniques that his network of optometrists have found successful and that could be easily and effectively implemented by every optometrist practicing within any mid-size regional/local optometric group.
If understood and put into practice, the following five ideas can significantly change any practice and make it realize its full potential.
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John Sailer, Senior Editor
Send us news about your mid-size regional optical chain or optometric group, provide us with subjects and/or questions for a future dba q&a or let us know what topics you'd like to see covered. Contact dba's Editor John Sailer at jsailer@jobson.com.
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