Dr. Ryan Cazares with Monica Rougeau, owner of Elevare International. Dr. Cazares says consultants like Rougeau helped him do for his practice what he couldn’t do on his own.
Practice success strategies with help from 4 different consultants
By Ryan Cazares, OD
March 26, 2025
During my fourth-year externships with the University of Houston College of Optometry, my attending doctor, Joe Deloach, OD, FAAO, gave me advice that changed the course of my life.
He was giving me and my fellow externs a lecture before patient care on how to get a job after graduation. To paraphrase, his advice went something like this: “Joining a corporate chain or a private practice are great options, but why not open a clinic right out of school? You’ll never have enough knowledge, and you’re used to being broke. Why not now?”
Although I worked for a pair of optometrists in rural Louisiana after graduation, I found myself wanting to return home to Scott, La., where I grew up and lived most of my life. Scott is a city of about 8,000, but it connects to a more urban Lafayette, a vibrant city of 121,000 with a very rich culture–and more importantly, where my family resides!
But I did not know what in the world I was doing. I was truly flying by the seat of my pants! A year or two after opening the doors to Scott Eye Care, I found myself busier sooner than I expected.
I reached out to an optometric consultant company, but its program felt too cookie-cutter; I felt that the same curriculum was pitched to rural, suburban and urban practices. Their methods did not work for my patient base.
Over the next few years, I utilized the services of four consultants who greatly helped the course of my private practice, and I plan to use the services of another for the next chapter of my business.
Editor’s Note: There are many great practice management consultants for ODs to choose from. These are just the ones that Dr. Cazares has personal experience with in helping him to transform his practice.
Mike Rothschild, OD
Leadership OD
I remembered meeting Dr. Rothschild at a practice management club meeting at UHCO and a RevolutionEHR conference. He has an infectious, fun personality and an unmistakable Georgia twang in his voice.
Dr. Rothschild has a gift for connecting with, not only you as the doctor/owner, but especially your staff. He gets them very involved with recognizing bottlenecks in the clinic and also how to fix them. Your staff will feel engaged and will buy-in to helping things run more efficiently, effectively and profitably–because they are the ones who come up with the solutions!
Pre-COVID, Dr. Rothschild would host an annual Leadership OD retreat with his partner Mick Kling, OD. They would alternate the site of the meeting yearly between their practice locations: Atlanta and San Diego, respectively.
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I connected with like-minded ODs with similar problems at their clinics. However, all of our patient bases had their differences. Mike is good about adapting to your practice’s unique needs to help you and your staff come up with a pathway to success.
I enjoyed these retreats so much that I flew Mike to my practice twice to host my own retreats. The result was a more engaged, motivated staff with a shared clear vision for the future of my practice.
Mick Kling, OD
Impact Leadership
As much as our schools prepare us for seeing patients, there is no way for them to prepare us for the financial and administrative aspects of our practices. Although I have always been a numbers guy, I felt I could use some clarity on better managing finances.
Having met Dr. Kling through Dr. Rothschild’s workshops, I connected with him and went through his Impact Leadership Program. We started by having him comb through my profit and loss, balance sheet and expense reports. He then set up a comprehensive spreadsheet that I still use years later. The spreadsheet is a tool to help you budget and, more importantly, profit.
His method is based on Mike Michalowicz’s book “Profit First,”which I happened to read just before starting with Dr. Kling’s program.
The basic concept is simple: you open several bank accounts, one for each of income, expenses, taxes, owner’s compensation and profit. Dr. Kling will help you determine what allocation of each deposit you disperse among the accounts. This can help you realize your profits, save for equipment, pay off debts and pay yourself.
The most valuable result of his program is how I am well-prepared each quarter to pay taxes–it no longer catches me off guard.
The result of going through his program is a better understanding of practice finance and tools to make a budget that’s easy to create and follow each month for my practice.
Monica Rougeau
Elevare International
My proudest accomplishment at Scott Eye Care is the work culture that my office manager, Beth, my associate, Geesala Garvin, OD, and myself, (my “Leadership Team”) built over the years. We created such a great employee culture that several staff members who left for other jobs ultimately returned.
However, we felt a shift in 2024 that made my associate and office manager miserable. Having never had any kind of training in human resources, I reached out to my close friend’s mother, Monica Rougeau, owner of Elevare International.
Monica has several years of experience as a healthcare executive and a passion for building successful teams and developing servant leaders. She was the perfect fit for this troubling season of my practice.
Monthly, Monica met individually with each member of the Leadership Team to coach us on aspects of managing staff members and each other. She would also meet with the three of us together. Early in her coaching sessions, we came up with a plan to have a team retreat.
I closed the clinic for the day, and the team met offsite. Monica first had us complete a True Colors temperament test, which assigns one of four colors to each of us.
For example, I am orange (adventurous; ideas person); Dr. Garvin is gold (planner; well-organized); both of my opticians are blue (sympathetic; hospitable); and my specialty contact lens technician Nikki is green (logical; independent thinker). This may sound like a silly personality test, but it proved to be extremely valuable!
Now, when I have one of my many ideas, I run it by Nikki (green) who can envision if it will work for the practice. I then run it by Dr. Garvin (gold) who can help us plan to integrate the idea. My blue technicians and opticians are good at connecting the idea with patients.
Knowing each of my team members’ temperaments helped me put the right person in the right role at the clinic.
Monica also helped my leadership team define our core values. Having these written out and placed into a new employee manual–another thing Monica helped us with– enabled us to realize we needed to let one of my staff members go.
As good as she was at her job, she did not align with these values. Although this ultimately was a simple solution to a complex problem, learning the skills to manage employees and establishing rules and core values will help us prevent our work environment from reaching a breaking point again. It will also help us recruit and retain quality employees!
I consider Monica’s program to be one of the best investments I made in my practice, as it will pay dividends for the rest of my career and practice ownership.
Eric Mattei, MBA
Akrinos
During the COVID shutdown of 2020, I purchased a plot of land just a mile or so away from my current leased space. I am simply sitting on it, and it proved to be a good investment as my city of Scott grows and develops exponentially.
My ultimate dream is to build my own standalone clinic or perhaps a strip center with Scott Eye Care as the anchor. I may have learned a lot during my entrepreneurship, but I still know next to nothing about real estate. This is where I plan to work with Erich Mattei, MBA, founder of Akrinos.
Erich is the friendliest person you may ever encounter. Do not discount him because he is not a doctor–he has been in our field for many years and knows what it takes to be successful. He is trained in what we are not, making him a perfect complementary piece to the puzzle of practice ownership.
Erich developed a company that can help optometrists no matter what stage of practice ownership they may be in: cold-start, purchasing, selling or simply growing. He has many tools and extensive knowledge in business.
This year, I plan to attend the conference Erich co-founded with Paul Mormon, OD, and Peter Van Hoven, OD, the GRT Summit , which provides practice management and continuing education sessions in national parks throughout the U.S., along with other enjoyable destinations.
Bottom Line: Perseverance + Expert Help = Success
I recently had a bracelet made that I wore daily. It was custom-crafted with the engraved words “Nothing can stop me.”
It is an affirmation I can quickly look at when challenges arise in my life or my business–a reminder to myself of what I consider to be my greatest trait: my perseverance.
After a few months wearing this, it did not feel right. I re-ordered the bracelet, but changed the words to read “Nothing can stop us.” Because I truly believe that if we all simply work together, nothing can stop us.
Don’t ever be hesitant to seek help. Some people are gifted in areas where you may be lacking, and vice versa.
Imagine what we can accomplish if we combine our talents!
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Ryan Cazares, OD, is the owner of Scott Eye Care in Scott, La. To contact him: dr.cazares@scotteye.com
