As much as many of you would like to reduce remakes, many fewer are willing to make a substantial investment in technology that might help the effort. The most common amount respondents to The Vision Council’s 2012 Eye Care Professional Report were willing to pay for a patient measuring device was less than $1,000, the price chosen by 43 percent of practice respondents. Another 10 percent of respondents said they would be willing to pay $5,000 or more for a patient measuring device that guaranteed to easily reduce remakes and bad fittings. Opticians (13 percent) and practices that dispense 10 or more jobs per day were especially likely to say they were willing to pay $5,000 or more. On the other hand, practices that dispensed one to five jobs per day were more likely to say they would not spend more than $1,000 on a patient measuring device.
The prime directive of IMS (Integrated Medical Systems – a surgical and laparoscoptic device repair company) is “Act as if your loved one is on the (operating) table.” This is the way we should all treat our patients. It is definitely the way we want to be treated when we seek care for ourselves. So, the question becomes, do we really have this level of commitment to patient care? One way to tell is to look at the redo rate for spectacle lenses for the practice. Every spectacle laboratory should provide us with a Practice Rx Analysis Report that tells us what lenses we are prescribing as well as our redo rate.
The redo rate is a measurement of one of the service flaws found within a practice. A service flaw is when we let the patient down–when we did not deliver what we promised when we promised. Having service flaws is never a good thing. We should always be working on reducing our service flaws.
What is the trend in the practice for redos? If we want to know the answer to this question, then we need to look at our redo rate over time. Is it getting better? Is it the same or getting worse? If it is getting better, then we must be doing something to make this happen. We may be investing either in education or technology to help reduce the redo rate. If the redo rate is the same or getting worse, then this area needs attention immediately.
Let’s expand our thinking on this subject. Time is a significant issue in a practice. The old saying “If you haven’t got the time to do it right, when will you find the time to do it over?” is another side to this issue. Within the current managed care environment, as well as the coming changes to healthcare, efficiency is essential. Every redo costs time, money and aggravation. Every redo adds to the inefficiency within the practice. To help imbed essential efficiency, eliminating redos must be a high priority in every practice.
You action plan today is:
1. Find out the redo rates for the practice over the past year.
2. Identify the redo rate trend.
3. Create an action plan to reduce the redo rate. (Hint: Investing in technology is a winner.)
