Dr. Schauer and staff celebrate the practice’s 75th anniversary. Photo courtesy of Dr. Schauer.
Don’t be afraid to adjust your schedule to do more in less time
By Brittany Schauer, OD
Nov. 3, 2025
Everyone thinks that their office needs to be open seven days a week to make ends meet and make patients happy. Yet that is not always the case. This routine certainly doesn’t do much for achieving work-life balance.
Over the years, we’ve found ways to trim down our hours while accomplishing more.
It’s a schedule change that my staff loves because they can spend more time at home. Many of these adjustments spurred from their needs as parents. As a mother of two kids myself, that extra time with my family is always important!
As a business owner, I know these changes can be scary. This new schedule is working well for our team and its morale. And the icing on the cake is our patients have been very understanding of the changes.
Here’s the timeline we followed in making these gradual changes to our schedule.
DROPPING SATURDAYS
This move was made even before I became owner of the practice. Traditionally, it was open on Saturdays and it was a challenge. It seems like a great convenience to offer these hours that are outside of the traditional workweek. Yet, it was an endless struggle to get patients to show up. It was also difficult for staff with families to commit to working the weekend.
The previous owner stopped working Saturdays. He analyzed the results after making this change, and he told me he didn’t see a difference in revenue. If it doesn’t add to your bottom line, there’s no point in doing it.
CUTTING BACK LONGER DAYS
When I stepped into ownership in 2014, our schedule was Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., with a longer day on Tuesday until 7 p.m. Over the years, we were beginning to feel like 6 p.m. on a Friday in the summertime felt like an eternity.
In 2020, we cut the Friday hours back to end at 5 p.m. Just an hour different, but everyone was happier. A year or two later, we decided to do it on Thursdays, followed by Wednesdays, too.
Then, in the fall of 2024, three very longtime staff members all retired on the same day. I was forced to close early on Fridays at 1 p.m. to be sure we had enough coverage. We also moved our Mondays to 5 p.m., as we had with many other days of the week. It was a leap of faith but it was important to me to provide an accommodating schedule for our team.
Despite my worries, there have been zero complaints about our change on Friday afternoons. We still do have some openings in the schedule, but they are more condensed than random like they were before.
Dr. Schauer enjoys spending the extra time with her horse. One of her favorite hobbies is barrel racing. Photo Credit: Rockin’ Pj Photography.
I thought about changing Friday’s schedule for a long time. I didn’t have the courage to do it until I didn’t have a choice. Don’t be nervous to make this change, too! Take back that time for yourself. I often spend it horseback riding on a sunny fall afternoon. Patients will make it work and find another time to see you.
CHANGE YOUR EXAM CADENCE
My patient exam time frame was based on the routine started by the previous owner and his associate. As we made adjustments to our schedule, I also changed our exams from scheduling every 45 minutes to every 30 minutes.
I made this switch for a few reasons. First, it helped us fit a few more exams into our shortened work week. It also helped address office flow issues we were experiencing, particularly before we remodeled our space. I was creating a bottleneck when exams were longer. When I took one patient out of the exam room to the optical, my next patient wasn’t ready. They would still be dilating.
I’m more efficient with exams every half hour because my next patient is ready. Also, after our remodel, I started dilating much earlier in the exam process.
When I crunched the numbers, they were impressive. I made this switch to 30-minute exams in 2020. Before that in 2019, I was working four days a week at 45-minute exam slots, and I did 1,402 exams. In 2020, even with six weeks of a COVID shutdown with no exams, I did the same four days a week with 30-minute exam slots and saw 2,074 exams. That’s a 45% increase!
Flow will vary for every doctor and office. Our newly designed space has more of a circular flow with a designated pretesting room as a central hub for all testing. Then patients move to the exam room for case history. There’s less moving around with this new design.
Exams are shorter but it doesn’t impact patients in a negative way. Instead, there’s been lots of positive feedback. People who have come here for a long time think it’s awesome that there is less waiting around.
We may be open fewer hours now, yet we are more efficient with our exams. We are doing more exams in less time.
IMPACT ON THE BOTTOM LINE
Looking back to 2019, when we were open 51 hours per week (8 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day and 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesdays), we did 4,702 exams for a total revenue of $1,597,322.
If I compare for year-to-date 2025, we are projected for 4,130 exams and $1,830,025 working only 43 hours per week.
That’s a 15% reduction in operating hours, but we made a 15% increase in revenue. If I compare just to last year in 2024, we are roughly on par with exam count, but still projected to bring in $40,000 more in revenue. That’s with working six fewer hours every week (closing at 5 p.m. Mondays and 1 p.m. Fridays). That gives you back a total of 312 hours per year!
SHOW APPRECIATION TO THE TEAM
We all love our job and each other, but the reality is that we have families and lives outside of work. Our staff loves being done early on Friday and a little earlier the rest of the week. They are happier. I have more time at home. We are doing the same thing that we did before—or better—in less time.
For patients who cannot leave work early, we have kept our Tuesday schedule with a late night until 7 p.m. The staff says it’s worth it to keep this one late day, and the patients do appreciate it.
As a business owner, you are the decision maker. But you can’t forget to think of your staff in the process. They are out there answering the phone, taking complaints from patients and hearing the feedback on what patients want. Always involve them in the decisions. It makes them feel important when you show them that their opinion matters.
Read another story with Dr. Schauer here.
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Brittany G. Schauer, OD, is the owner of Vision Source Mandan in Mandan, North Dakota. To contact her: bschauer@visionsource.com |
