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By Scott Allison, OD, MBA
Feb. 13, 2019
When the practice where you work is transitioning, you worry about more than your professional life. You worry about whether the new owner will positively impact patient care and your team members.
Ossip Optometry, where I served as chief operating officer, joined the MyEyeDr. team last year. We found that patient care not only wasn’t interrupted; it has been made even better.
Will the New Owner Care As Much As You Do?
The continuity of patient care, and ensuring our patients would be able to access the high standard of eyecare they had become accustomed to, was a priority during the decision-making process.
Would our patients be taken care of to the standards we had established, and could it be elevated? I am proud to say we practice to the same, or higher, standards as we have in the past. When considering patient care, you must compare the purpose and values of your organization with those of the buyer. Ossip Optometry and MyEyeDr. share many similar values, and our purposes are both focused on helping people.
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Coordinate Transition With Whole Team
Our leadership teams wanted to be very involved with the integration to help our family become acquainted with the MyEyeDr. team and purpose. We always try to put family first, and that is the approach we have adhered to during the integration.
The overwhelming response has been positive, especially when we noted to our teams the expanded opportunities for staff growth, new positions and training for new job roles.
Our office and professional teams have embraced and welcomed the change. Our teams have always been aligned to our purpose, and we are quickly embracing the similar MyEyeDr. purpose. I’m gratified to say that we have been able to retain the same office teams we had prior to the sale.
Find a Buyer That Encourages Continuous Learning & Growth
The expertise the MyEyeDr. team brings in a “can I help you?” way, in combination with its new systems, has helped us retain our patients. We are able to offer them increased value while maintaining the quality of care and products we are providing.
We have introduced new systems, including a new electronic health record, which helps to streamline our patients’ experience, and allows our teams to be more patient-facing.
Consistent Care for Existing–and New–Patients
By partnering with MyEyeDr., we have adopted a more robust approach to reaching existing patients, as well as new ones. MyEyeDr. takes it slow in transitioning existing patients to the new brand with a customized approach, depending on factors like market density, newness to market and heritage of the existing brand.
MyEyeDr. gets the word out to our community through search engine optimization and social media marketing, so both existing and potential new patients know the services and care we have to offer.
New Opportunities for ODs
The opportunity to be part of a network of doctors with wide-ranging experiences, and have access to numerous subject matter experts within the group, offers doctors great support and education. We have been fortunate at Ossip Optometry to have developed these resources on a fairly large scale, and now it is exciting to see our optometrists have even more colleagues and resources.
We are able to compare care and patient experience delivery methods with other MyEyeDr. practices, creating a vault of best practices that we can draw from whenever a new challenge arises. That ability to easily get feedback from other practices enables doctors to grow professionally, and learn how to offer improved services and a more impressive office experience.
Building a Future Together
Successful practice partnerships begin with identifying alignment to the values and purpose of seller and buyer. When the values and purpose of the two organizations are similar and aligned, the questions of “will my team be taken care of?” and “will my patients be taken care of?” have ready answers. Every practice is unique, and every doctor selling their practice has different needs. Recognizing and identifying the needs of the practice, doctor–and patients– must be taken into consideration.
I’m grateful we found a partner that respected our practice’s individuality, and has given us exactly what we need to provide a consistent, high level of care for our patients.
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Scott Allison, OD, MBA, was the chief operating officer of Ossip Optometry, which has thirty-five locations in Indiana. The practice joined MyEyeDr. last year. He now serves as the Vice-President of Professional Services for MyEyeDr.
