All photos courtesy of Dr. Jason Davis
The journey of practice modernization and looking for services, such as special photography, to stand out
By Jason Davis, OD
Oct. 22, 2025
I graduated from Nova Southeastern University College of Optometry in 2017, and I immediately purchased a practice from a soon-to-retire OD. I was lucky. In the town I grew up, there was only one optometrist. He was winding down his career while I was in school.
After my predecessors retired in 2020, it was time to modernize the practice, Palm City Eye Care. I took everything I learned from my externships and offices I had shadowed, as well as resources such as ODs on Facebook and Review of Optometric Business. I got to work.
MODERNIZATION OF THE OFFICE AND ITS SERVICES
In 2021, we moved into a temporary office three doors down in my plaza. We gutted our practice. Five months later, we moved back into our shiny new space. With the remodel, we added electronic medical records, an Optos, an OCT and most importantly, an associate doctor.
For the next few years, we steadily grew into a premier office in our area. Then in 2024, the next-door neighbor in our office building decided to leave. I could not pass up the opportunity to increase our square footage, so I took over that unit. Over another noisy five months, we gutted and remodeled that side into a beautiful optical. This gave us the space on our main side to spread out and add two more associate doctors.
GROWING WHILE KEEPING A FULL SCHEDULE
By the fall of 2024, we had over 4,000 square feet of office space and four ODs. We had all the bells and whistles in technology, adding upon what we previously had to include topography, VR field sets, pachymetry, ERG, specialty contacts, myopia control and more. You name it, we did it.
I was proud of what we had built over the last four years. But now, with four doctor schedules to fill, we had a new problem. For the first time since I took over in 2017, we didn’t have a booked-out schedule. At the same time that we were doubling our doctor hours, another private practice moved into town a half mile down the street. Two months later, a Costco opened two miles away.
I knew I needed to do something to differentiate our services to help us stand out even more. One night, I was doom scrolling Facebook when I came across an ODs on Facebook post about iris photography. An OD and her husband who visited Rome on vacation experienced this specialty photography. To follow, there were more than 50 comments about this technology, interested in it here in the U.S.
The iris had always been something I was interested in as an OD. Yet with this specialty service falling into an artistic category, quite different from our clinical offerings, I wasn’t sure if it was something that fit into our territory. That night, I decided to take the chance to let this new service help us stand out.
COMBINING SCIENCE AND ART
I emailed the three companies, investigating the options that existed overseas. I chose to work with EYEPIXX because of my experience working closely with the company and its management. We worked together to rewire the whole machine to work on our electricity system and built a protocol that would make sense for a busy American optometry practice.
Our goal was to have staff take off with this new technology, taking up zero doctor time. We wanted the camera to be easy to operate and produce quality photos.
Our experience with iris photography in the office began early in 2025. When patients come in for their routine exam, they can decide to take the iris photos. A trained technician takes the photo after the exam. Patients receive a code on their photo card and they pay $30 per person at check out.
They can follow the QR code on the card to customize their iris artwork. Images are shipped directly to the patient’s home.
STANDING OUT GENERATES BUZZ AND REVENUE
I had hoped this would be an extra revenue stream for the practice and be something fun that would set us apart from our competition. The result has been a new buzz in the community about our established practice. Our reputation for full scope optometry is now coupled with a cool edge.
Through adding iris photography, we have increased revenue on established patients at $30 per patient. We also have a 50% capture rate on new patients who were initially calling just for an iris photo. That takes a $30 new patient and turns them into a $200 to $500 new patient.
New patients call daily to schedule iris photos. This technology has raised our new patient per day rate by 15%. While we have them on the phone, we schedule their comprehensive eye exam, as well.
We’re also seeing a trend that when someone schedules an appointment to use the camera, they don’t come in alone. We average three photos per call to schedule.
In a world of cookie-cutter corporate offices, stand out and be cool. Don’t be afraid to do something different.
Read more patient experience articles on ROB here.
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Jason Davis, OD, has been the owner of Palm City Eye Care since 2017. He is a happy husband and father of two great kids. He is also a partial owner of EYEPIXXUSA. To learn more about iris photography, contact Dr. Davis: palmcityeye@gmail.com |
