If you would sit in the receptionist area of your optometry office, what kind of people would you see? When you value a practice it can be difficult to gage the “health” of the patient base. There is a natural progression of patients in an optometry office.
Wichita Kansas is known for startup restaurants. If a restaurant can make it in Wichita, then you should be able to make it anywhere, at least that is what I’ve heard. Since new restaurants have been popping up around me, I have observed the changes in customer traffic from opening day, to 1 month after opening, and to 3 months after opening. The restaurant that continues to keep the lines out the door is the restaurant that I still see standing years later.
This is the same for optometry offices. When you look to value a practice, new patients is not always a sign of a healthy practice. New patients are important, but a practice worth investing into is defined by the number of advocates the office has produced.
To determine the number of advocates in an office, take the health history forms or your practice management software and look for a “who may we thank for referring you?” This is usually standard on good health history forms. If you are buying a practice then it would be worth your time to search this out yourself, however, if you are already in a practice then I would delegate this to a staff member. When you do this exercise, make sure you tally the number of times you see a particular patients name. This will separate the advocates from the loyal patients. I would mark anyone that has referred over 10 patients as an advocate. With this information you will not only be capable of assessing the health of the practice, you will have a killer list of patients to target internally. Win-Win
