1. Virtual Field has rebranded to Carrot to create new opportunities for their future in delivering an expanded virtual reality pretesting platform.
2. Carrot's platform now includes more than visual field - pupillometry, color vision, ocular motility. In the near future, the platform will include contrast sensitivity, D-15, and cover test available to be done within the platform. In addition to the roadmap, the platform will build in machine learning and AI to accelerate how practices deliver a better patient experience.
3. The more tests that can be done effectively in VR, the faster pre-testing can go in your practice. It can free up space for an additional lane or more optical displays. Instead of one tech per one patient, some practices are able to connect one technician with up to three patients.
4. Change is always difficult, no matter the technology. Working directly with your team on the how, what, and why is critical to success to implement.

What Jeremy is reading: 

1. Conquistador by Buddy Levy

Practice Advantage Reading List

**Don't miss out on an extra $15 rebate for all commercial VSP Eye Exams throughout all of 2026! Visit www.pecaaexamrebate.com now!**

Key Takeaways:

1. Be change ready. Build your business strategy with possible adversaries to address and plans for how you'd respond to them. 
2. Your business isn't the only one facing uncertainty. All of your patients are as well. Understand how they're feeling and reacting to the uncertainty and adjust how you take care of them and do business in order to meet them where they are. Leverage the data in your PM system and your daily conversations with your patients. 
3. When faced with uncertainty, take care of your people first. Rally around your team and build them up. Focus on what you have control over, not the things you have no control over. 
4. 2026 brings significant opportunity to strengthen your practice culture. In addition, leverage AI to build your operations, increase revenue, and expand care to patients. 
5. The natural response to fear is fight, flight or freeze. Consider a fourth option - forging a new path forward that every threat gives opportunity to create. 
6. Remember, our profession is unbelievably resilient. We've weather many storms that have threatened how we care for our patients and none of have been successful in putting us out of business. 

What Jonathan is reading: 

1. Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
2. Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara
3. Think Again by Adam Grant

Practice Advantage Reading List

**Don't miss out on an extra $15 rebate for all commercial VSP Eye Exams throughout all of 2026! Visit www.pecaaexamrebate.com now!**

Key Takeaways:

1. Own your role in medical optometry. Most patient cases don't need a referral out to ophthalmology until surgical intervention.
2. Medical v. Vision doesn't have to be all or nothing - give the vision exam patient a nugget of their medical diagnoses and treatment options and then bring them back for their medical follow up visit.
3. You can never put processes and systems in place too early. Even if it doesn't feel like it's needed, there will come a time when you needed those systems in place.
4. Beginning with the dry eye conversation addresses the most significant issue the patient is facing. Highlighting the additional impacts certain treatments like IPL, RF, LLLT, etc. have additional benefits that the patient may also experience. This opens the door for the patient to experience them and wanting to continue the treatments for cosmetic reasons.
5. Celebrate wins with your patients and with your team. Only the patient gets to determine what their wins are. 

What Dr. DenHartog is reading: 

1. Battlefield of the Mind by Joyce Meyer

Practice Advantage Reading List

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Key Takeaways:

1. Buying an established practice gave him a head start with the patient base especially a base that was loyal. Spending time in the practice by himself allowed the practice to slowly transition before the founder retired.
2. Staff is the engine that makes the practice run. Retaining the staff following the transition was critical. Bringing the staff along on the changes over time made a difference.
3. Despite how successful the practice was, there was significant opportunity to improve aspects of the business. Taking it slow, getting one change right at a time was key to bringing staff and patients along on the journey.
4. Building a business doesn’t mean you have to grind all day, every day. While that’s certainly an option, building a successful business should empower you to live the life you want to live within and outside the business.
5. Prioritizing opportunities outside the office requires prioritization of processes and efficiency within the office such that you’re maximizing both the people and time in the office.

What Connor is reading:

• Wild At Heart by John Eldredge

Practice Advantage Reading List

** Don't miss out on an extra $15 rebate for all commercial VSP Eye Exams this year - with $15 extended through June of 2026, and $10 thru the end of next year! Visit www.pecaaexamrebate.com now!**

Key Takeaways:

1. While websites feel like old hat, they shouldn't. Your website should tell your story, evoke an emotion from your patients, and set them up for the experience they'll have in your practice before they actually step foot through the door. Language tone, colors, fonts, photos, and videos matter significantly.
2. Your brand is all encompassing. Your decisions. Your patient experience. Your physical space. Your lighting. Your technology and equipment. A good marketing partner will take all those into consideration to build a strong foundation.
3. Setting your processes and procedures to set your practice up for the success you want. Make the bold decision. Stick to it while it's tough. It will lead to the outcomes you want.
4. Your personal story is a critical component of your brand. Tell it and tell it often. Offloading your marketing prevents you from telling that story effectively.
5. To continue to grow, your strategy must evolve over time. As your strategy changes, invest in your marketing to support the specific goals you have for that time period.
6. In the grand scheme of things, the basics of marketing are the most impactful. 

Dr. Garcia's Practice

What Saul is Reading:

• Letters from a Nut by Jim Nancy

Practice Advantage Reading List

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Key Takeaways:

1. Newton was inspired by Isaac Newton, one of the earliest fathers of optics and prism opening a new direction for three pillars: Sequel, Neurolens, and AI innovation.
2. Sequel is the newest lens portfolio to hit the market, spanning two near relaxing designs and a full progressive. Driven by Convergence Boost technology, the lens eliminates the varients in prismatic effect as patients move form distance to near.
3. Neurolens continues as the flagship product for Newton, leveraging the N3 device to deliver therapeutic optics to patients with symptomatic convergence issues.
4. Newton is also investing in Isaac, an AI innovation and training platform to support private practice staff training and development.

What Davis is reading: 

• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni

Practice Advantage Reading List

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Key Takeaways:

1. Chemical cauterization of lid lesions is within the training of optometrists, and is permitted in many, but not all states.
2. The procedure is relatively straightforward. A wooden applicator is soaked in the chemical agent. Following application, the lid lesion will no longer receive blood supply, leading to necrosis and sloughing off. Follow up is 2-3 weeks and is rare to have complications.
3. Patients actively desire to have these skin lesions removed but aren't necessarily thinking about having it done in the optometrist's office. The lead in conversation is important and many patients will be open to receiving treatment.
4. Staff are a great asset with this service. It is not a major burden on the team as the treatment and preparation is relatively simple. Getting them on board is key to success.
5. Depending on the patient complaints, it may or may not be billable to insurance. For cosmetic only, it is a cash based procedure. On average, each treatment adds $350 per patient to your top line. Given most of it is a service based, most of that drops to your bottom line.

What Brett is Reading:

• 10X Is Easier Than 2X by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy

Practice Advantage Reading List

** Don't miss out on an extra $15 rebate for all commercial VSP Eye Exams this year - with $15 extended through June of 2026, and $10 thru the end of next year! Visit www.pecaaexamrebate.com now!**

Key Takeaways:

1. Connection with yourself is critical to success as a business leader. Knowing your values, what drives your integrity, and how to be present is what sets great leaders apart from the rest. 
2. A great way to build connection with your people is to start with curiosity. Ask more questions, have less answers, and make everyone's voice feel heard - both personally and in the context of work. 
3. A connected team creates an energy in the business that patients can feel when they walk through the door. It is the foundation of a great patient/ customer experience. 
4. Actions speak louder than words. 
5. As a leader, it is important to build relationships with your people and create the space to share deep challenges and great successes. 
6. Connection builds trust and that is a slow process. Yet, trust allows you to move faster, more efficiently, and be more effective. It allows you start at a further place down the path to change and growth. 

What Jonathan is Reading:

• Tuesday Morning Coaching by David Cottrell

Practice Advantage Reading List

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Key Takeaways:

1. Having a disciplined, growth mindset is the foundation for scaling your practice as large as you want to build it. You can't grow your business without working on and growing yourself along the journey 
2. The most successful businesses aren't afraid of making mistakes in the process of growing. Mistakes lead to learning that lead to faster, more effective business decisions in the future.
3. You can't scale without having great people. Build your business around a great employee experience leads to a great patient experience. Empowering them to lead, grow, and develop is necessary as you grow. Find people who can help you build in addition to those who can help you run the business.
4. Stick to a game plan that works. Repeat it over and over. Avoid distractions that take you away from your core business model.
5. Surround yourself with people that help you become the person, business, etc. you want to be.
6. Luck favors the bold and prepared. Say yes, make the phone call, make the crazy ask, take the chance.

What Mike is Reading:

• Traction: Get A Grip On Your Business by Gino Wickman

Practice Advantage Reading List

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1. Humans are far more likely to remember details, facts, and information when they're wrapped in a story v. just shared individually. In fact, facts are up to 22x more likely to be remembered when they're wrapped into a narrative than shared individually.
2. Humans primarily make decisions in the right hemisphere of the brain - tapping into more of the emotional creative side - and then it reaches the left hemisphere where we use logic and rational thinking to justify the decision. If we only lead with the logical and rationality with our patients, we miss the most critical aspects of their decision making process.
3. There are multiple ways of crafting a story but two of them work really well in business - the PIxar method and the Storybrand method.
4. Story provides extra significance and value to the products you sell. In 2009, two journalists purchased 100 random useless items for a total of $129.  They listed the items on eBay and had writers craft a story for the item itself. In the end, they were able to sell the items for more than $3,600 all due to the value a customer associated with the item due to its story.

Practice Advantage Reading List

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Key Takeaways: 

1. Best advice: "Independent practice is not that difficult. You only have to do two things. Make sure people like you and control your personal and professional overhead."
2. At one point, LOG worked with over 40 different vendors. When looking only at their optical, they had 30-35 reps calling on them regularly. It cost the practice $100 an hour in staff costs to see reps, equalling more than $40,000 a year.
3. LOG looked at various industries for insight on how to improve their vendor purchasing habits and their data to influence their  purchasing. EdgePro made a huge difference in tapping the data in the EHR system to make better purchasing decisions.
4. Vendor data has not been all that impactful for Livermore as it's focused primarily on the vendor partner's product but does not take into account the practice as a whole. Bringing the practice level data into the conversation has a much greater impact.
5. Great vendor partners are ones that know the practice individually and provide the support the practice needs. Great partners are willing to work with the needs of the practice based on the data the practice has.
6. For Livermore, the VSP practice report has been valuable to providing even greater insight into their patient base and other practices in their area.

Practice Advantage Reading List

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Key Takeaways:

1. Emily knew she wanted to be an optometrist in elementary school and as she worked her way back to her home town, knew that starting her own practice was the only way to create the ideal environment for her.
2. Her vision was to create a practice that would serve all ages of patients and while that vision has stayed the same, the practice has evolved to provide more pediatric services and specialty contact lens care.
3. Mentorship and building a team/ community around her to support the cold start launch was critical to opening on time and successfully. Being curious and asking questions is one of the most important skills.
4. Fear of failure is a normal emotion to have not just before opening but after as well.
5. While it is important to know and understand as many areas of the business as possible, do not hesitate to outsource components of the business to allow you to focus on the aspects on you can focus on.
6. Your staff will never feel the same depth of connection to the business and its success as you the founder, but there are ways to get them to invest long term in the success and care about the patients and business.

What Emily is Reading:

• The Housemaid Series by Freida McFadden
• Sara J Maas series

Practice Advantage Reading List

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Key Takeaways:

1. 2BB has a powerful origin story. Brad and Bryan were shopping in Bloomingdales when they realized they bought the same shirt based on feel alone due to challenging nature of clothes shopping when visually impaired. Thus was born this idea of creating an apparel brand that was so comfortable on initial feel that you'd want to buy it.
2. 2BB donates 100% of all company profits to fund blindness research. It has grown into the eye care industry through partnering with L'Amy who was donating proceeds form their sales to 2BB by purchasing plush guide dogs.
3. To date, 2BB has donated more than $3 million to research and supporting businesses that employ individuals with visual impairment. That funding has directly impacted bringing genetic treatment options to the market for genetic retinal/ neuron-ophthalmic disease including Stargardt's.
4. Having a noble cause that the business supports cultivates a deeper emotional connection with customers for which that cause resonates. The story must be authentic and true to who your business is. 

What Brad and Bryan are reading:

• Brad: Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
• Bryan: What Got You Here Won't Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith and Mark Reiter

Learn more about 2BB:

• Frames
• Apparel

Practice Advantage Reading List

** Don't miss out on an extra $10 rebate for all commercial VSP Eye Exams this year! Earn up to an additional $60,000 in 2025 just by taking great care of patients. Visit www.pecaaexamrebate.com now!**

Key Takeaways:

1. Only 20% of Americans who have hearing loss use hearing aids. In Europe where audiology and optometry are close partners, it's more than 33%. In the UK and Denmark, it's over 45%.
2. In Europe, 48% of hearing aids are fit in private optometric locations.
3. When available, vision care patients are more than open to receiving hearing care in their optometry office and vice versa. Hearing patients are more than open to receiving vision care from optometry practices that offer it. It provides significant convenience that patient consumers want and rests on the trust optometrists have built with their patients. The average consumer with hearing loss has no idea where to go for hearing care.
4. Like so many other opportunities, team training and education on the "why" is critical to success. 
5. The availability of OTC hearing aids have dramatically increased the awareness of hearing loss and hearing care, further driving the opportunity for success in this space. 

What Dr. Clarke is reading: 

•  Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke

Practice Advantage Reading List

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Key Takeaways:

1. Avulux is a light filtration system that filters out specific wavelengths of light that have been shown to amplify the symptoms of migraine headaches including photophobia and light sensitivity.
2. The technology is based on two studies that showed that 480nm and 500 nm light triggers pain and photophobia in patients suffering from a migraine without impact to color perception.
3. More than 47 million individuals in the US suffer from migraine and 1 in 3 women are affected.
4. Migraine sufferers are both well connected and actively driven to find solutions for their symptoms, driving the opportunity this poses for optometric practices.
5. Success in prescribing these technologies to patients begins with connecting their individual experience with the problem to the solution you're prescribing. 

What Derek is reading: 

• Start with Why by Simon Sinek

Practice Advantage Reading List

** Don't miss out on an extra $10 rebate for all commercial VSP Eye Exams this year! Earn up to an additional $55,000 in 2024 AND an additional $60,000 in 2025 just by taking great care of patients. Visit www.pecaaexamrebate.com now!**

Key Takeaways:

1. A "Soulbattical" is a time to take a step back, realign the work you're doing with what matters most to you, and living it out each day in your work. It involves living and leading with greater authenticity, courage, and fulfillment. 
2. Creating a fulfilling work environment means being able to bring our entire selves to work. We want our team members and us to be able to do that.
3. One of Shelley's most powerful reflection questions: What are you pretending not to know?
4. Avoid "Shoulding all over yourself". Living out of your authentic journey allows you to shed the "shoulds", the expectations that drive, challenge, and drain you consistently. Identify 3 that are not productive and take one of them you want to remove today. Reframe and step away from them. 
5. Take an inventory of your work and life and determine what falls into "Soul Fuels" and "Soul Sucks". Seek to maximize the fuels and minimize the sucks as much as possible. 

Shelley's Book: Soulbattical: A Corporate Rebel's Guide to Finding Your Best Life

What Shelley is Reading: 

• Four Thousands Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

Practice Advantage Reading List

** Don't miss out on an extra $10 rebate for all commercial VSP Eye Exams this year! Earn up to an additional $55,000 in 2024 AND an additional $60,000 in 2025 just by taking great care of patients. Visit www.pecaaexamrebate.com now!**

Key Takeaways:

1. RetiSpec's technology works with most standard fundus cameras and uses AI to assess and detect the retinal changes associated with amyloid deposition - the biggest risk factor and key diagnostic criteria for Alzheimer's.
2. There are 55 million individuals globally living with dementia and there are at least 6.7 million individuals in the United States 65yo+ with dementia. It is believed these numbers vastly underestimate the number of individuals that have it. It is estimated that 1 out of 9 individuals age 65 and over have Alzheimer's disease.
3. Having the conversation with those that are high risk or have early disease can be a challenge. Leverage the data from the report, lead with empathy, and own your role as part of the team - refer the patient to PCP or neurology for further workup and share more tests will be done to determine.
4. There are two FDA approved medications for Alzheimer's disease and we know prevention is also key: diet, weight control, and exercise.
5. Technologies like these will only advance the role optometrists play in full body health and wellness. Practices wanting to be successful in the future must take advantage of them. 

What Catherine is reading:

• Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making by Tony Fadell 

Practice Advantage Reading List

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Key Takeaways:

1. Word of Mouth will always play a key aspect of marketing, but we must continue to adapt to new forms of marketing. The basics will still apply: have a great website, have a strong social media presence, be involved in the community, and having an online scheduler are key aspects.
2. Our online presence is critical as all patients will use it at some stage in their patient journey. It's important to pay attention to the rules and regulations that exist around marketing to them digitally. Leverage the tools available through the primary platforms like Google and consider working with an agency or freelance consultant to navigate.
3. Technology will continue to play a role in how we reach people. It's important to be transparent with how we use that technology. While metaverse may or may not come to full fruition, it's important for us to be aware of. Even more tools will be available to us that aren't even in our imagination at the moment.
4. AI will play a role in helping us understand our existing and future patient customers so we can reach them more effectively through our marketing channels. It can help you develop the right content, keywords, budget, and strategy. AI can also help us understand patient sentiment before and inside the practice which will help you reach them even further. Transparency will be key here.
5. Our patients will always want to be known. Leverage the technology, tools, and resources of the future to lean into this.

What Shelby is Reading: 

• The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
• Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez

Practice Advantage Reading List

** Don't miss out on an extra $10 rebate for all commercial VSP Eye Exams this year! Earn up to an additional $55,000 in 2024 just by taking great care of patients. Visit www.pecaaexamrebate.com now!**

Key Takeaways:

1. Diagnostic equipment plays two critical roles both today and the future - it provides the clinical insight needed to take great medical care of patients and provides an impactful patient experience through improved efficiency and experience.
2. The advancement of treatment options for ocular conditions will further drive the advancement of diagnostic technology to aid and improve the clinical experience.
3. Technology and equipment won't ultimately replace the intuition and knowledge of the doctor. The future of eye care will provide the doctor the opportunity to be more efficient and effective, especially through the exam flow. 
4. Add all the technology as long as you can plan for and implement it effectively and efficiently. It provides added top line value and is an investment in the value and worth of the business. 
5. The future of technology should enhance the doctor's quality of life and quality of work. 
6. The future of technology should integrate the medical exam and retail experience into one seamless experience with little to no perceptible change. 
7. AI is here to stay. You should be thinking about it when it comes to technology in your practice. 

What Jim is reading:

• The Situation Room by George Stephanopoulos
• Die With Zero by Bill Perkins

Practice Advantage Reading List

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Key Takeaways:

1. The dry eye disease market will grow from $6 Billion to over $7 Billion in the next five years. While many optometrists have expanded dry eye management within their practice, there will be so many more patients to treat from now into the future.
2. Michelle believes there are three different levels of dry eye disease management today in practice. Where does your practice fall?
   1. Full Service Practice - Leverages variety of tools and equipment to both diagnose and actively manage the disease v. just the symptoms. They retain all patients in their practice and create the opportunity to develop referral relationships with others.
   2. Referral - This practice refers primarily based on symptoms. They may manage some of the symptoms but refer for more active treatments.
   3. Shared Care - This practice diagnoses and actively manages dry eye patients but does not have full treatment options and therefore will share the care with other practices in the area that may have additional treatment modalities.
3. Successful implementation of dry eye management in clinic depends on your why. Beginning with the why for adding services, communicating it frequently among the team, and finding ways to measure and track success.

What Michelle is Reading:

• Start With Why by Simon Sinek

Practice Advantage Reading List

** Don't miss out on an extra $10 rebate for all commercial VSP Eye Exams this year! Earn up to an additional $55,000 in 2024 just by taking great care of patients. Visit www.pecaaexamrebate.com now!**

Key Takeaways:

1. 35% of individuals who take Visibly's online vision test fail the exam - resulting in a recommendation of referral to a provider. From a standpoint of private practice, this type of technology has the potential to drive more patients INTO a practice.
2. Visibly is primarily a visual acuity testing software and provides the ability to refract the patient remotely (available only in Europe currently). Both visual acuity testing and full refraction involve an eye doctor throughout.
3. There is clear patient consumer demand for the ability to do portions of their eye exam remotely. The average consumer that uses Visibly is a 27 year old female with an income of $42,000 a year that feels they may not be able to come in for an exam every year. While this is hard to swallow for most optometrists and private practice owners, this technology could provide the business an opportunity reach this demographic in a unique way. 140 million individuals skipped their annual eye exam last year.
4. For private practice, remote visual acuity testing could be leveraged as a marketing tool to connect your patients more to your practice, as part of an e-commerce strategy, and/or way to shorten the time the patient is in the practice which is tied to increased patient purchasing within the practice.

What Brent is reading:

• Leading with the Heart by Mike Krzyzewski

Practice Advantage Reading List

** Don't miss out on an extra $10 rebate for all commercial VSP Eye Exams this year! Earn up to an additional $55,000 in 2024 just by taking great care of patients. Visit www.pecaaexamrebate.com now!**

Key Takeaways:

1. Digital Optometrics was born out of both a patient demand for access, especially in rural areas/ healthcare deserts and solve the gap in provider demand.
2. DO has performed over 1.8 million remote eye exams and currently performing 2500 pre day on the system.
3. Today’s patient consumer wants convenience of care access independent of when the doctor is in the office. 9 out 10 times, patients will choose convenience over waiting to see their trusted doctor.
4. DO has a current NPS of 85/100 and is reflective of all populations that leverage the service
5. Private practices interested in leveraging tele-optometry could provide exam services outside normal business hours, choose to be the doctor to provide care or leverage DO’s doctors as desired, consider hiring doctors from out of state, expand their existing space, or open practices/ locations in other locations without having to immediately have an onsite doctor to care for patients.

What Howard is reading:

• Start With Why by Simon Sinek

Practice Advantage Reading List

** Don't miss out on an extra $10 rebate for all commercial VSP Eye Exams this year! Earn up to an additional $55,000 in 2024 just by taking great care of patients. Visit www.pecaaexamrebate.com now!**

Key Takeaways:

1. Kathy's Four Steps to Implementation
   1. Identify the need for change and what needs changed
   2. Prepare everyone for the change
   3. Implement the change
   4. Track results for that change
2. Bringing your team onboard from the very beginning is critical. Clearly explain what will be changing, the why behind the change, and get their input and feedback on how to be successful. Ask their opinions up front.
3. Before pushing Go, it's important to detail out all the steps necessary to be successful with the implementation. You cannot be too detailed as it will minimize surprises that pop up and throw you off course.
4. Tracking and managing the plan after beginning execution is just as important as pulling the trigger. Make sure you set aside time for track the new change, ask your team for their feedback and what they've noticed - good or bad, and have key data points (KPIs) that will tell you whether or not you're being successful.

What Kathy is reading:

• Lifescripts: What to Say to Get What You Want Out of Life's Toughest Situations by Stephen Pollan and Mark Levine

** Don't miss out on an extra $10 rebate for all commercial VSP Eye Exams this year! Earn up to an additional $55,000 in 2024 just by taking great care of patients. Visit www.pecaaexamrebate.com now!**

Key Takeaways:

1. Innovation isn't just about disruption and the future. True innovation respects the past, understands the presents, and seeks to solve the problems of the future.
2. Two key trends Ruth is following outside of eyecare that likely will impact eye care:
   1. Hybrid care - the best of in person and virtual in a single experience (e.g. Forward Care, Carbon Health, Eden)
   2. Future of Benefits (e.g. upskilling, maternal care, leisure/ travel benefits, mental health)
3. Innovation often starts with solving a single problem for a small group that leads to noticeable impacts for larger populations. Don't overlook small opportunities to innovate and create large wins within your business.
4. Spatial computing will also impact eye care and the patient consumer's awareness of the importance of eye and vision care.
5. Innovation is truly about setting yourself up for the future. Generative AI is a technology that will dramatically impact health care and eye care. In many ways, small businesses have the opportunity to leverage these easier than larger corporations. Considerations for generative AI include data readiness and "human in the loop" operation. 
6. Five innovation questions to ask yourself:
   1. Can you create value in an ambiguous environment?
   2. Do you go beyond challenging the status quo?
   3. Do you get in the trenches? 
   4. Do you truly believe that ideas come from anywhere?
   5. Do you know yourself?

What Ruth is Reading:

• Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity by Peter Attia MD
• Move Fast and Fix Things by Anne Morriss, Frances Frei

Additional Resources:

• VSP Global Innovation Center LinkedIn Page
• VSP Global Innovation Center page
• Future of Benefits report
• Future of Generative AI in Healthcare report
• Futurist Reports page
• Emerging Tech Accessibility Guide
• Hybrid Care Insights Reel
• SXSW 2024 Official Panel: Future Eye: 10 Vision Trends That Will Transform Healthcare

In this series, we'll talk through how the industry is evolving and how other companies view innovation. We'll also talk through change management and how to successfully make process changes or bring in new opportunities to your practice. 

We look forward to you joining us on this journey!

There's a new resource available from the Practice Advantage podcast! Download the Practice Advantage Reading List to see all the books recommended by our distinguished guests over the last 3 years. 

Key Takeaways:

1. Start with the end in mind. Envision December 31, 2024 and look back on the year. What happened over the course of the year. Where's the practice and what success did we have along the way?
2. Set SMARTER Goals. Your goals should be:
   1. S - Specific
   2. M - Measurable
   3. A - Achievable
   4. R - Relevant
   5. T - Time-bound
   6. E - Evaluated
   7. R - Readjusted and Rewarded
3. Avoid death by goals. Setting too many goals is a distraction and prevents you from doing the most important work. We recommend setting 3-5 key goals for your growth this year.
4. Bring your team in along every step of the way. Allow them space to provide feedback and input. Encourage them to stretch and share why the goals are important. Buying in to the goals gives them motivation to accomplish them.

** Don't miss out on an extra $5 rebate for all commercial VSP Eye Exams this year! Earn up to an additional $30,000 in 2024 just by taking great care of patients. Visit www.pecaaexamrebate.com now!**

Key Takeaways:

1. For a practice to truly expand in dry eye management, a number of things are important to have:
   1. Diagnostics - Inflammatory testing, tear osmolarity, and meibography
   2. Treatment Options - ZEST or BlephX, meibomian gland treatments including thermal pulsation and IPL/LLLT, Amniotic membranes
   3. Willingness to Prescribe Medications - Meibo, Tyrvaya and others
2. Different dehydrated amniotic membranes are processed in different proprietary ways which could impact their effectiveness on the eye.
3. While amniotic membranes can certainly be used for complex, severe cases, the earlier they're used the better the outcome the patients will have. Any moderate dry eye patient having difficulty with ocular surface healing would benefit. 
4. When managing patients with dry eye, always be on the lookout for patients that would benefit from an amniotic membrane and do not hesitate to educate on the option when appropriate. 
5. Dr. Robben is now using K-DISK 80% of the time patients need an amniotic membrane. The bidirectional nature and ease of handling make application easier than other membranes and has seen significant improvement in patients' outcomes. 
6. Dr. Robben recommends bringing the patient back for a follow up visit to place the amniotic membrane v. doing it same day in practice for both reimbursement purposes and patient expectations/ deductible considerations. 

What Jerry is reading:

• The Lifestyle Investor by Justin Donald

** Don't miss out on an extra $5 rebate for all commercial VSP Eye Exams extended through December 31, 2024. Earn up to an additional $15,000 in 2023 and up to $30,000 in 2024. Visit www.pecaaexamrebate.com now!**

Key Takeaways:

1. The easiest way to bring amniotic membranes into your practice are by just doing it. Learn about application tools, patient education, billing and coding from the companies themselves and just go for it.
2. Amniotic membranes aren't just for train wrecks. Persistent ocular surface disease, reduced corneal sensitivity, and moderate dry eye are all great cases for amniotic membrane use.
3. Knowing the patient's deductible status ahead of time aids in the conversation. Dr. Mila presents amniotic membranes as one of hte only treatments that are covered/ billable to insurance and it's the only regenerative approach to corneal tissue and nerves. Knowing the deductible status prevents the patient from being surprised. The wow effect matters.
4. Don't be afraid to publicly market your dry eye and amniotic membrane treatments to patients on your website and patient communication. Have a word of mouth strategy and execute it.
5. Communicate the service and value of your products to other specialists in the area treating patients with conditions that cause dry eye.

What Mila and Roger are reading:

• Think Again by Adam Grant
• Shift Your Brilliance by Simon Bailey
• Becoming Supernatural by Dr. Joe Dispenza

** Don't miss out on an extra $5 rebate for all commercial VSP Eye Exams extended through December 31, 2024. Earn up to an additional $15,000 in 2023 and up to $30,000 in 2024. Visit www.pecaaexamrebate.com now!**

Key Takeaways:

1. Gratitude and thankfulness are two separate concepts but are similar expressions of deep appreciation for a person, an action, or thing.
2. Leaders who express gratitude are more effective, efficient, and create more productive teams.
3. Studies show that 80% employees would work harder if they knew they were working for an appreciative boss.
4. Personal ways to increase gratitude:
   1. Send notes of gratitude
   2. Keep a gratitude journal or at least a list gratitude
   3. Take the time to reflect on the things you are grateful for
5. Ways to get great at gratitude:
   1. Be grateful for your people, not just their performance
   2. Customize it to your people
   3. Be specific
   4. Be authentic

References:

1. Research Reveals 3 Reasons Why Gratitude Is An Important Leadership Quality
2. How to Express More Gratitude at Work & Why Gratitude in Leadership is Important
3. Research: More Powerful People Express Less Gratitude

** Don't miss out on an extra $5 rebate for all commercial VSP Eye Exams extended through December 31, 2024. Earn up to an additional $15,000 in 2023 and up to $30,000 in 2024. Visit www.pecaaexamrebate.com now!**

Key Takeaways:

1. Overall, it's important to follow a yearly marketing calendar with each quarter focusing on a different type of campaign. The end of the year is great for a "Use It or Lose It" campaign.
2. Use It or Lose It is powerful because it reminds patients they have benefits to use and that they are likely to "lose out", which plays into human psychology. Preventing loss is an incredibly powerful driver of action.
3. Use your practice management platform to identify the patients who have not been in to see you. Selectively communicate with/ market to them for this campaign.
4. Use all avenues available to you for this type of campaign: website pop ups, email communications, social media, practice texting, online advertising/ Google Ads, PECAA Ads - even more traditional forms of advertising to those patients for which it works.
5. All content should have a call to action - a specific action item you want them to take after consuming your marketing materials. A great option is "There's No Better Time Than Now To Take Advantage of Your Vision Benefits. Schedule Your Appointment Online Today."

What Shelby is Listening To:

• How I Built This with Guy Raz

** Don't miss out on an extra $5 rebate for all commercial VSP Eye Exams extended through December 31, 2024. Earn up to an additional $15,000 in 2023 and up to $30,000 in 2024. Visit www.pecaaexamrebate.com now!**

In this episode, my guest is Founder & CEO of focalCenter, Dr. Ron Krefman to discuss the power of leveraging demographic data in understanding who your patients are, how to market to them, and how to grow. To get PECAA member pricing on localEyes, visit localEyes and use Discount Code "PECAA". 

Key Takeaways:

1. Data, specifically demographic data, are valuable in understanding who your patients are and what opportunities exist within your practice to grow.
2. Most patient consumers are willing to drive 20-30 minutes for their eye and health care.
3. Data are only as valuable as the insights they provide and the decisions they impact within the practice.
4. Leveraging the focalCenter localEyes report provides insights like who your target market is, who you should direct your marketing towards, and the utilization of eye care services in your trade area, the amount they’re wiling to spend on eyewear, and more.
5. Make one change at a time. Test it, learn from it, and adjust based on what worked and what didn’t.
6. Data like this should be reviewed regularly for the insights they provide and should be updated every 2-3 years.

What Ron is reading:

• The Tetris Effect by Dan Ackerman

In this episode, I sit down with Brant Southwell and Pierre Bertrand of neurolens to discuss implementation of their newest technology, N3. N3 takes the neurolens measuring device into virtual reality and streamlines the doctor's use of the platform. 

Key Takeaways:

1. Business innovation is driven by observing the needs and painpoints of your customers. Neurolens' newest measurement device was built on the most experienced pain points and opportunities of patients and doctors.
2. The new N3 device moves out of pre-testing into the exam room and is to be used while the patient is waiting for the doctor. The VR based platform makes testing and patient education easier.
3. The new VR platform has resulted in 80% of patients wanting to learn more about neurolens, driving the conversation forward and making it easier to have patients fulfill their neurolens prescription.
4. To improve capture rate, position neurolens as a medical device and help the patient connect the solution with the personal and psychological impacts of their symptoms in their day-to-day lives. 

What Brant & Pierre are reading:

• In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson
• Revival by Steven King
• The Score Takes Care of Itself by Bill Walsh

Vision Expo West is this week and having a game plan in place ahead of time is crucial to success when it comes to purchasing frames and equipment for your office. IN this episode, I sit down with Bryan Hoban and Kayla Groves from our member business advisor team to discuss a game plan for success. 

Key Takeaways:

1. Take stock of your financial situation before the show. Understand your cash flow and current cash on hand and determine if financing or a cash purchase is smarter for your business. Review interest rates ahead of time, as well.
2. Review your current frame board, your most popular frame lines, and the gaps in style and price point you have. Evaluate what frame brands your patient are already wearing to help identify the gaps you may have.
3. Before purchasing equipment, run the monthly cost of a 5 year payment, even if you're paying in cash. Compare that with the clicks or sales needed to break even and determine how easy it will be to generate additional revenue and ROI from the purchase. Review any additional changes in office flow and staff. 
4. Build a purchasing map prior to attending to make sure you're purchasing frames and frame lines that fill the gaps in the practice and the space you've set aside for these new lines. 
5. Market via social media all that you're learning. Connect with your team during the show if they're present and/ or afterwards if they are back in the office. 

What Bryan and Kayla are reading:

• Bryan: Quiet - The Power of Introverts In a World That Won't Stop Talking by Susan Cain
• Kayla: She Thinks Like a Boss by Jemma Roedel 

Your practice and business is only as successful as the quality of team members you employ. Searching for, interviewing, and hiring great candidates is one piece of owning a business that consumes a lot of energy and time for owners and managers. Hiring for attitude is an important key to success in advancing your business and practice culture. 

Key Takeaways:

1. The Bureau of Labor & Statistics job report for august showed an increase in unemployment rate and increase in hiring in healthcare, providing a better opportunity currently for practices to find good candidates.
2. Hiring for attitude begins with defining your practice culture and what a great candidate/ employee looks like.
3. During the interview, ask behavioral based questions that uncover their attitudes and passion that align with what you want in your practice.
4. Asks similar behavioral based questions when you're checking references. Validate the types of experiences and behavioral responses the candidate shared during the interview.
5. Always be hiring and on the lookout for good candidates in other places you do business on a regular basis.

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Brianna Rhue, owner of West Broward Eye Care in Tamarac, FL to discuss her recent buyout of her partner to become sole owner. 

Key Takeaways

1. Timing is a critical part of the process. Put in the time and energy ahead of time to set the course for partnership and buyout.
2. Invest in the relationship with the partner. Build trust, be transparent, and be up front about expectations and the plan.
3. There are a number of ways to valuate the practice and they often result in a significant difference to make up. Negotiate appropriately. Consider using the cash flow as the tool for agreeing on the purchase price.
4. Private practice success rate is high, making financing relatively easy. This is less of an issue to secure the money to purchase.
5. Transitioning both patients and staff is key to success.

What Dr. Rhue is reading:

• Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell

Do you want to create a great customer experience for your patients? Do you want to make life easier on your team? Allowing patients to book and change appointments online is a great tool to do both. 

Key Takeaways:

1. Demand for online scheduling is high
   1. 20% of patients state waiting for the practice to open is a major pain point when it comes to scheduling appointments
   2. More than 30% of appointments are booked outside normal business hours
   3. Nearly a third of patients prefer too book online
   4. More than half of Millennials and Gen Xers would switch practices based on online appointment scheduling
2. Offering online scheduling saves team members significant time
3. Online scheduling increases your same day and next day appointments, great for filling gaps in your schedule
4. Online appointment requests do not count as online scheduling
5. Implementation does not need to be difficult. Simple steps, grace, and being willing to make changes helps you be successful with implementing this powerful tool.

In this episode, I sit down with Cindy Morgan Jaffe, founder of the Positive Money Club and author of the book Positive Money to discuss how we look at and think about money and the impact it has on our business.

Key Takeaways:

1. In many ways, the messages we’ve received about money growing up impact how we make financial decisions in practice. Beginning to recognize these influences is the best place to start in order to change them.
2. Be curious. Ask iterative questions to both understand your money mindset and begin reframing how you’re impacted by money, how you see it now, and how you want to see it or make change in the future.
3. Positive Money is a philosophy of living with money that leads to the results you want leveraging positive intelligence.

Resources:

1. Positive Money by Cindy Morgan Jaffe
2. Positive Intelligence
3. The Soul of Money by Lynn Twist
4. Mindset by Carol Dweck
5. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

What Cindy is reading:

1. Pillar Based Marketing by Ryan Brock
2. The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese

On today's episode, I sit down with employee engagement expert Richard Hadden to discuss simple strategies for keeping the great talent you already have and attracting great new talent. 

Key Takeaways:

1. Culture is the personality of the business. You can feel it as soon as you walk in the door.
2. And engaged employee is one who is "into" their job. The more "into" their job they are, the more they care about the organization's mission, the more the like spending time there, and the more they believe their work makes a difference for someone.
3. Businesses with an intentional strategy for employee engagement are more productive, more profitable, have less turnover, recruit more talented employees, and create more wealth for business owners. 
4. Taking care of employees and above all, generally caring about them personally leads to far greater productivity. It's the easiest place to start. 
5. Recruiting great talent is really marketing. Tell your great place to work story. Create a reputation for working at your business. What would it look like for your practice to be a "destination employer". 

Additional Resources:

• Contented Cows Resources
• Contented Cows STILL Give Better Milk

What Richard is reading:

• Truman by David McCullough
• I Must Say by Martin Short

Key Takeaways:

1. Purpose drives impact. Understanding your why is critical to having the impact you want to have. Purpose is what you want. Impact is what you actually do. The bigger the difference between the two, the bigger the frustration and dissatisfaction.
2. You can measure your impact. Define the KPI’s that show how well you’re delivering on your purpose and how your patients experience your business.
3. The context of the situation - where your people are, where your patients are, what’s going on in their lives. These pieces of context affect your ability to have the impact you want - especially when it comes to developing, growing, and providing input to your people.
4. The Human Impact Framework can support the process of defining your purpose, your impact, and the people that matter in the process. Levering this tool allows you to be more effective in delivering a great culture, patient experience, and overall impact.

Additional Resources:

• Episode 62 - Dissecting Difficult Conversations with Erin O'Malley
• Human Impact Framework 
• TEDx - Impact is a Context Sport

What Janna is reading:

• How to Be Heard by Julian Treasure
• Who Do We Choose to Be by Margaret Wheatley
• The Age of AI by Henry Kissinger
• The AI Superpowers by Kai-Fu Lee
• Positive Money by Cindy Morgan Jaffe

Key Takeaways:

1. Culture starts with the values the business has and are often the really good things of how the practice runs. Start by defining and spotlighting them regularly.
2. Culture in a small business is easier than a large business. Small changes make big impacts in short time.
3. Ownership Culture focuses on employee engagement. Owners are engaged. Renters are disengaged. Vandals are actively disengaged and are divisive, toxic, and actively sabotaging the business's success. Owners show up daily with "head and heart", doing their job with drive and passion. Renters do their job well, offering their skills but are not engaged further. 
4. The reasons vandals stay within a business:
   1. They are significant revenue generators and they know it
   2. They've been there a long time and it's awkward now to do something about it
   3. Nepotism - they're family members
   4. They are also the owner
5. Renters often become renters because they don't have the ability or opportunity to offer their full thoughts, ideas, and view of the world into how the business improves and grows. Creating space for this helps move renters towards owners.

More Resources:

• Episode 50: Culture for Cold Starts with Davis Capaccioli, OD
• For more on Ownership Culture - Email Dr. Manning

What Greg is Reading:

• The 12 Week Year by Brian Moran

Key Takeaways:

1. Change is difficult. Don’t think you have to do lead, drive change within your practice all by yourself.
2. The first step to any successful endeavor is understand your “why”. Why are you doing this? Why are you passionate about seeing it succeed?
3. Maintaining change isn’t easy either. Learn from the challenges, the “failures”, and why something may not have gone to plan. Adjust accordingly and stay accountable.
4. Have a scorecard for success. Manage against it. Recognition and reward is key to keeping your staff connected to your scorecard.
5. Leverage the connected knowledge of experts around you to accelerate success. Learn from mistakes made and successes had.
6. Getting started is key.

Other episodes mentioned in this episode:

Episode 48: The KPI's You Aren't Tracking with Bryan Hoban

Episode 24: Focus On Financials Part 2 with Bryan Hoban

Episode 23: Focus On Financials Part 1 with Bryan Hoban

Key Takeaways:

1. Many don't like having difficult conversations due to the effects it could have on the relationship. We play "What If?" games for the negative, yet we should really look at the positive "What If?" outcomes that could come from having the conversation.
2. Consider shifting away from the feedback sandwich - it can cause whiplash and leave your employee focusing either on the negative or the positive (and they miss the constructive). As Dr. Brené Brown puts it, "Clear is kind."
3. Erin's framework for difficult conversations:
   1. Intention - Sets our intention and guides the conversation
   2. Framing - Seeing the specific situation and behavior of the individual
   3. Impact - What's the impact the person's behavior is having on the business case
   4. Inputs - Ask questions and bring the other person in
   5. Invite - Invite them into the conversation and the solution
4. Feedback is a two way street. The inputs and pulling them in to the conversation, asking them how they feel or think about the challenge is really important. Be present.
5. As you frame the difficult conversation, avoid talking about subjective issues. Address the objective actions and behaviors head on.

What Erin is reading:

• Say What You Mean by Oren Sofer

Key Takeaways:

1. One bad apple spoils the whole bunch. People don’t leave bad jobs, they leave bad leaders.
2. Having a handbook sets performance expectations that help facilitate productive people management
3. Focus on your own unique value proposition. This impacts your ability to source great talent.
4. How do you source great talent?
   1. Word of Mouth
   2. Indeed
   3. Other service industries
   4. Asking for referrals from employees
   5. Schools and training programs
5. Engagement in the job and Enablement to do the job are both super important to retain staff

Wish you were in Nashville for the PECAA Annual Meeting? Be sure to block your calendar for the 2024 meeting in Las Vegas April 29 - May 1, 2024!

1. A commodity is something purchased solely on price and convenience.
2. Brand loyal customers pay 20% more on average for the same product.
3. Be unique - own a single idea and be better at it than anyone else. 
4. Be memorable
5. Focus, Focus Focus

Wish you were in Nashville? Mark your calendar for next year's meeting in Las Vegas April 29th to May 1st, 2024!

1. 11% of employees are in the right job to match their personality profile. Investing more time how we're wired is important to impacting a practice's culture and talent. 
2. 3/5 out of employees would leave an employer without that ability to connect to leadership
3. Feedback is key to employee and culture success - praise-based and constructive/ developmental. 
4. Inspirational leadership is the most important leadership trait needed by millennials. 
5. Connection happens in the art of fly-by
6. Let culture thrive

Wish you were at the PECAA Annual Meeting? Be sure to mark your calendar for April 29-May 1, 2024 in Las Vegas, NV!

Key Takeaways:

1. Start at the beginning - with insurance verification. Verifying the patient's insurance ahead of time informs the practice on how to best care for the patient and leverage those benefits before the patient steps foot in the practice. 
2. Evaluate the entire Revenue Cycle Management process. Determine the areas that need work and define those individual steps and processes in specific detail. Make sure they work for your individual business. These established processes also help when you have to replace or fill in for your billing specialist.
3. Under-coding and over-coding are significant problems. Take the time to learn what you can bill, how to determine the exam levels you provide, and the appropriate documentation. Don't miss out on billing for services you provided as they are also risky in an audit. Knowing the rules helps you sleep at night when it comes to an audit. 
4. Medical and vision insurance can cause challenges when the patient presents for a vision exam, yet has a medical problem. Leverage both within the rules and keep medical and vision separate when appropriate. Educate your patients up front and throughout their entire experience with the whole team.
5. Don't forget the processes after the patient is seen. Submit claims on time. Chase down denials and rejections as soon as possible. Track and manage your billing and coding KPI's. 

What Teri is reading:

• Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown

Key Takeaways:

1. Evaluate the current realities of your referral networks
2. Determine the referrals you want and establish your referral policies and procedures
3. Reach out yourself to the providers in your area as much as you can
4. Don't be afraid to refer and seek referrals from other optometrists
5. Leave detailed information for the providers you're working to build referrals from
6. Send detailed communication to providers you both receive referrals from and from whom you are seeking referrals
7. Host doctor education nights to showcase what how you can serve their practices and their patient

Have you registered for the PECAA Annual Meeting?

Key Takeaways:

1. The opportunity to scale can come along at any time. Be prepared and ready in your current practice location(s) to be able to say yes when the opportunity presents. 
2. Buying a practice means acquiring an established brand that has the opportunity to grow. It's important to recognize the value of the brand (good or bad) and leverage it or change it appropriately. 
3. Success in acquisition means having standardized processes strong enough that you implement them in the second business. Take into account what that location does well, but replicate the processes you have established. Be flexible enough to evolve and grow but replicate at the same time. 
4. Replication also involves the culture. Acquiring a business can mean acquiring great people and other times, it means people who won't get on board with the direction you're headed. Don't be afraid to let people go who aren't aligned with your mission, vision, and values.

What Sahil is reading:

• The Great Game of Business by Jack Stack
• Think Like a Monk by Jay Shetty

Are you joining us for the PECAA Annual Meeting 4/20 to 4/22 in Nashville, TN?? If you don't want to miss out, learn more at https://www.pecaa.com/nationalmemberevents.

Clint's Disclosure:

“We represent Credentialed Wealth Advisors, an SEC registered investment adviser.  The opinions expressed are solely our opinions and are not necessarily those of the podcast host or any advertisers or of Credentialed Wealth Advisors, LLC.  Our appearance does not constitute an offer to buy or sell securities and no investment process is free of risk.  No investment process we may discuss can be guaranteed to be profitable.  The investment opportunities discussed may not be suitable for all investors.  All data and references we cite are believed to be reliable.  Any opinions, news, research, analysis or prices discussed are general commentary and do not constitute investment advice.  Our comments cannot be construed as tax or legal advice.  Listeners are urged to contact their tax or legal advisor for any related questions.”

Key Takeaways:

1. One key economic metric to understand the health of the US consumer is the S&P Experian Consumer Credit Default Composite Index - the percentage of consumers behind or in default of consumer credit. Today it is 0.63% compared to over 5% at the height of the Great Recession in 2009.
2. Interest rates continue to rise to increase the cost of borrowing money, ultimately leading to lowered inflation. As small business owners, high interest rates indicate a much deeper need to be especially strategic about how new purchases will be used to drive growth in revenue. If cash flow is high, retaining cash in the business is valuable.
3. The US economy has been in decline for much of 2022 and a number of leading economic indicators show this. A few of these: the number of manufacturing hours worked, ISM Index of new orders, and consumer expectations. All are down and interestingly, the consumer expectation index as lower last year than at the worst part of the Great Recession. Consumer expectation is improving.
4. The US Labor Force Participation Rate indicator shows that we still have not replaced the jobs lost during the pandemic. Consumer demand is higher than it was prior to the pandemic with less workers in the labor force.

What Clint is reading:

• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

Want to recession proof your practice? Join PECAA at www.pecaamax.com!

Key Takeaways

1. Pitfall #1: Overstocking of frames. Turn rate should be 3x on average in a practice. Frames that aren't turning at this rate shouldn't be stocked.
2. Pitfall #2: Capture rate isn't calculated or calculated poorly. Not having this data affects ability to make key decisions well within the optical.
3. Pitfall #3: Not maximizing reimbursement from insurance by taking wholesale and Frames Data and taking into consideration the type of optical they have: heavy managed vision care, budget, or luxury. 
4. Pitfall #4: Not actively managing the frame board and inventory, taking into consideration the practice goals, the practice business model, demographics, price assortment, and turn rate.
5. Pitfall #5: Not training all team members on the essentials of the optical.
6. Optical is still a significant opportunity for growth in private practice. The patients purchasing online and from e-commerce players are not ones who would purchase anyways from a practice. A large proportion of patients still want an in office experience.

What Kayla is reading:

• The Missing by Kiersten Modglin

Want to learn more about PECAA's Optical Management resources? Email us at info@pecaa.com.

Key Takeaways

1. Leverage your office manager. If your practice doesn’t have one, consider team leads to drive change.
2. It’s important to get started. Take some time away from patient care, pick one specific process to evaluate, determine your metrics, ask the right questions, involve the team, and most importantly, get started.
3. Consider the most important processes like recall, optical capture, doctor hand-off, and marketing – ones that have significant revenue impact for the practice.
4. Focus on the customer journey and map that journey. The mapping exercise helps lay out the process operations that you can focus on and improve.

What Kathy is reading:

• Stop Overthinking by Nick Trenton

Key Takeaways

1. The average practice loses at least 10% of their patients each year. Marketing to new patients in new markets is critical just to stay flat as a business, much less grow.
2. The big players are leveraging big data and AI, based around who the patient is, what they're looking at, when they're looking at it, to market to new potential patients successfully.
3. Re-marketing is incredibly effective. We don't always know when the consumer is in the awareness phase of the customer journey. Re-marketing keeps your product and service front and center so they know where to turn when they're ready to purchase. 
4. The most effective marketing is targeted - towards multiple categories of patients, but individuals who are most likely to access your services. 
5. PECAA Ads allows independent practices to leverage the big data and AI to drive re-marketing display ads to new patients in your community. Learn more today!

What Saul is reading:

• Drive by Daniel Pink

Key Takeaways:

1. Great leaders are curious. They listen more, ask more questions, and rely on input and feedback from those closest to the work. 
2. Emotional Intelligence is recognizing the entire person on the team and the thoughts and feelings they bring to their work. 
3. An EQ driven leader is self-aware of their own emotions, thoughts, and biases.
4. Creating an EQ driven workplace and leading with empathy does not absolve people of responsibilities to perform. Performance goes hand in hand with a great workplace. 
5. An EQ driven leader invests in their team's success, both professionally and personally. 

What Jonathan is reading:

• Daring Greatly by Brené Brown

Key Takeaways:

1. Davis's One-Year Cold Start Lessons learned:
   1. Make yourself available to patients to grow your practice. Efficient and optimized is great but not at the expense of being available for new patients.
   2. Patients will pay more for higher quality products especially with a story
   3. Don't burn out team members all for the sake of being lean and mean
2. Culture matters because the amount of time the patient spends with the doctor is less than they spend with the rest of the team.
3. Emphasizing core values, daily reminding of core values, celebrating living out the core values and encouraging them members to call out others helps drive a strong and great culture.
4. Every team meeting includes a “Values Moment” in which the owner and team members highlight others for living out the core values with a patient in the last month.

What Davis is reading:

• Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Pat Lencioni
• Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0 by Jim Collins

Key Takeaways:

1. Jamie's 3 Roles of a Leader:
   1. Define the North Star
   2. Have a structure for how they run and manage of teams
   3. Shows up when the chips are down
2. Lance's Keys to a Great Leader:
   1. Willingness to listen to other points of view even when it's different from yours
   2. Being able to be honest
   3. Selflessness
   4. Decisive
   5. Trust in team
3. Delegate results, not tasks
4. Take care of the organization, then the people, then the customer

Key Takeaways:

1. The basics are always important: Revenue Per Patient, Frame Capture Rate, Revenue Per Pair, CL Capture Rate
2. Data is only as valuate as the insight it provides: why the numbers are what they are and the steps that need to be taken to improve them. Deeper KPI's provide greater understanding as to why the main KPIs are there they are. 
3. Unique KPI metrics to consider:
   1. Frame line by gender
   2. Frame line by age
   3. Frame sales by gender
   4. Frame sales by age
   5. $0 frame sales
   6. Frame sales per period of time
   7. CL sales per period of time
   8. Months of CL sold
   9. Annual supply rate
   10. Frames per refraction and Lenses per refraction
4. KPI's that don't always help:
   1. Revenue per refraction. High amounts of medical can really throw this data points off.
   2. Chair cost. It can be skewed in a way that leads to poor decisions especially around managed care plan acceptance.

Key Takeaways:

1. The secret to scale is culture and speed
2. What is your mantra? Determine it and drive it home every opportunity you get.
3. Culture depends on your ability to be vulnerable and connect with your people. Work life balance should just be life balance. 
4. Culture involves surrounding yourself with people who you would want to have lunch/ dinner with and not talk business.
5. Processes and procedures make us more efficient and effective. It drives our ability to move fast. 

What Jamie is reading:

• The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

Key Takeaways:

1. Starting a VT practice can be intimating. Starting small and slowly scaling by adding services and space is a great way to get started. You do not need all the space and all the technology available to get started.
2. Success in VT practice relies on referrals. Referrals depend on relationships that you build with those in your community - teachers, educators, psychologists, neurologists, other ODs, and more. Always follow up with a report and take the time to understand their role in children or adults that need VT services. Consider speaking opportunities in your community. 
3. Don't be afraid to market your VT services for the practice. Share your message through your website, social media, Google ads, newsletters, books, and more!
4. Track and manage your numbers, trust your gut. 
5. Don't let your space confine you and impact your patient experience, but don't move before you're ready.

What Lynn is reading:

• From Strength to Strength by Arthur Brooks

Find out more about Dr. Hellerstein's books and podcast!

Key Takeaways:

1. PECAA wil continue to operate independently and led by doctors. Doctors know what doctors need. 
2. There will be new rebates and offers for PECAA Max and Advantage members right out of the gate.
3. VSP's resources will be used to bring PECAA's tools and resources.
4. Trust is critical to success and is driven by the actions we take, each and every day. 

What Mike is reading:

• Smart Brevity: The Power of Saying More with Less by Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen, Roy Schwartz

Key Takeaways:

1. There's significant crossover between devices and treatments that provide medical treatment and aesthetics. Beginning with the medical application makes expansion easier.
2. The demand for medical aesthetics already exists within your practice. It takes uncovering them, educating patients on them, and expanding the treatment options available to them.
3. Don't be afraid to ask colleagues, both in eye care and dermatology, about ease of implantation and pricing. Joining the American Med Spa Association can provide you significant tools and resources for implementation and pricing.
4. Team training and buy-in is critical. The more they can experience treatments, the success with patients, and take ownership over the areas, the more they will share the excitement with patients. Having a medical aesthetics coordinator can play a significant role in managing the patient experience.
5. Always market your new products. Consider focus groups you leverage as you add new products and services. Invite them to an open house as you launch them and allow them to experience it first. This will create significant word of mouth marketing.

What Santrell is reading:

• Winning With People by John Maxwell
• The Power of One More by Ed Mylett

Join PECAA Max today to maximize your business success, for your patients, your team, your community, and your bottom line!

Key Takeaways:

1. Always be open to input from others.
2. The opportunity for AMD in the United States is significant. 11 million are currently living with AMD and 20 million are at risk due to genetic and lifestyle risk factors. AMD is an untapped market in your practice.
3. AMD revenue opportunities include: Selling nutraceuticals, providing genetic testing, ongoing testing as part of management, at home monitoring, and dark adaptation
4. Like any additional service, success requires involving your entire team to engage the process and communicate the test and benefits appropriately to the patient. Telehealth can be a phenomenal tool for follow up, creating a better patient experience and minimizing time for both patient and doctor.
5. Don’t be afraid of the cost. Connect the value of personalized care to their long term outcome, and the cost conversation becomes much easier.

Take your practice to the next level with PECAA Max!

What Steve is Reading:

• Coach K: The Rise and Reign of Mike Krzyzewski by Ian O'Conner
• The Dynasty by Jeff Benedict
• Game: An Autobiography by Grant Hill

What Scott is Reading:

• S.C.O.R.E for Life by Jeff Fannin

Key Takeaways:

1. 4/10 consumers embrace private label AND 9/10 consumers will purchase private label products and goods.
2. Private label reduces cost by lowering the amount companies need to invest in marketing, merchandising, and branding. This means lower costs and higher margins to your patients.
3. Private label no longer means low cost and low quality. Most patients are not brand conscious especially when it comes to eyewear.
4. Private label is a proven success in other industries, it will work in optometry. It dramatically works to improve margins with managed vision care.
5. The primary avenues for private label:
   1. Patients only want what their insurance covers
   2. Long margin play
   3. Saving walking Rx's by creating packages

What Doug is Reading:

• The First Major by John Feinstein

Learn more about InD Eyewear and how to leverage the power of Private Label in your own practice!

Key Takeaways:

1. Without wrapping them up in a story, humans only remember 5% of facts that you tell them.
2. Patient consumers make purchasing decisions first on emotions and then support that decision with logic and rationalization. Storytelling opens up that emotional connection that primes the individual to purchase from you. 
3. In the optical conversation, tell stories that connect with the patient. It's ok to tell your story that helps then connect to your passion for optical and eye care. The story should be easy for the patient to connect to their own life and their own story. 
4. Don't just show the frame and style the patient but share the story of the brand and what matters most
5. Spend time with the frame reps that come into your practice in order to understand not only the quality of product but know the brand story. 

What Kayla is reading:

Key Takeaways:

1. A great office manager has have leadership and management skills and have the ability to make key decisions within the practice.
2. The role of an office manager really should encompass - leading and managing - everything outside the four walls of the exam room.
   1. Control costs and expenses
   2. Buying right
   3. Inventorying well
   4. Managing the day to day operations
   5. Hiring individuals and onboarding them well
   6. Making each team member feel valued and a part of the practice
3. The best office manager is an extension of you, the owner, not someone to whom you give up control. 
4. If you cannot spend the time to hire a good office manager, outsource it. One they're hired, slow down patient care to onboard them EXACTLY how you want to them to be. Train them the way you want them to be trained and teach them to make decisions they way you would. 

What Valerie is reading:

• Terminal List by Jack Carr
• Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Joseph Griffith
• Nightwork by Nora Roberts

Key Takeaways:

1. The most important factor for millennials, especially post-pandemic, is flexibility. Flexibility in practice doesn't have to mean work from home. Work with them to create schedules that work for them AND your practice.
2. Leadership is critical to success with millennials. The three key features of leadership they need: inspiration, transparency, and autonomy.
3. Allow your millennial employees to make key decisions when it make sense. Giving them autonomy makes your life easier and empowers them.
4. Transparency does not have to be 100% financial transparency or sheer emotional vulnerability. At the core of transparency is context. What is the context behind key decisions that are being made?
5. Master the art of the fly-by

What Chris is reading:

• The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgensen

Chris's books:

• The Millennial Whisperer
• Save Your Asks

Key Takeaways:

1. Disruption happens when someone or some company, often outside of the industry, challenges the status quo.
2. Disruption is often seen as a joke. Be careful when technologies seem like a joke as they may not end up to be one. This is where the opportunity lies within your practice.
3. Schedule disruption time for yourself - 30 minutes a week. Take the time look at your processes, operations, and more. Find ways to disrupt it and improve.
4. Innovation is not just a flash in the plan, great idea. Innovation is driven by both logic and rational and creativity. It's a process, and leveraging the Innovation Brain can help you innovate more. 

Connect with Shawn on LinkedIn and get a copy of the Innovation Brain! Being a part of PECAA Max can help you innovate and grow your practice to the places you want to take it. Learn more now!

Key Takeaways:

1. The individual you are taking of in your practice is a patient customer or patient consumer. They are both a patient, receiving health care they need and value, AND a customer, making decisions like a consumer, both coming to you and purchasing from you.
2. Start with a high level journey map. Take time to identify what are the individual steps the patient takes from the very beginning of their journey with you through your ongoing communication.
3. Once you've confirmed your high level journey map, dive deeper into what the individual experiences at each what.
   1. What actions do they take?
   2. How are they feeling? What are their emotions?
   3. What means of communication or technology are they using?
   4. What do you want them to feel during and after that step with your practice?
4. Engage your team throughout the entire journey mapping process!

We want to hear from you! Let Dr. Manning know about your own customer journey mapping experience and what insights you uncover!

Key Takeaways:

1. Retaining
   1. Deploy strategic marketing strategies
   2. Display strong patient reviews
   3. Provide anywhere, anytime scheduling
   4. Are you engaging your patients effectively?
2. Gaining
   1. Website reflects who you are
   2. Google search advertising
   3. Social media to generate leads

Learn more about how PECAA Max can benefit your practice today! Call 800.959.2020, Option 3. 

Key Takeaways:

1. 60% of the revenue in a n independent practice still comes from retail. Given the retail experience a patient has, patients must be seen as both patients and consumers - a patient consumer.
2. It is not enough to be a great healthcare provider and medical doctor. You have to run a successful business and if that's not you, hire a great office manager to run the business.
3. Important KPI's
   1. Capture Rate
   2. Revenue per refraction
   3. Average frame sale price
   4. Multiple pair sales
   5. Plano and Rx sunwear
4. Create a benchmark and then a realistic goal to achieve and manage that success.

Are you missing out on the PECAA Annual Meeting in Palm Springs, CA? Make sure you're a PECAA Max Member and join us next year in Nashville! Call 800.959.2020, Option 3 to learn more. 

Key Takeaways:

1. Creativity is our ability to toggle between Wonder and Rigor to solve problems. 
2. Innovation is an invention created into scalable value.
3. Wonder is the ability to be in awe, ask blue sky questions, dream, and be super audacious
   1. Who is your wonder mentor?
4. Rigor is structure, order
   1. Who is your rigor mentor?

Improve your creativity:

• The Creative Leap by Natalie Nixon, PhD

Are you missing out on the PECAA Annual Meeting in Palm Springs, CA? Make sure you're a PECAA Max Member and join us next year in Nashville!

Key Takeaways:

1. As a cold start, you have more time to focus on your business and your marketing. Don't be afraid to try new things and learn from the successes and failures.
2. Make the most of your budget. Start your marketing plan with low-cost options - social media, your website, and word of mouth marketing. Post as many updates throughout your opening process to your website and social media, well before you open. In adding, form partnerships with your business neighbors and attend community events!
3. The Five "T's" of Word of Mouth Marketing
   1. Talkers - Find the people who will talk about you
   2. Topics - Five people a reason to talk about you, your differentiator
   3. Tools - Help the message spread through your community
   4. Taking Part - Join in the conversation
   5. Track - Understand whether or not a strategy was effective. Track what they're saying and what they want. 
4. Key Marketing Milestones
   1. Designing your logo
   2. Website creation - this is where your patient experience begins
   3. Start your social media and build your Google business page
   4. Host a grand opening
5. Don't focus too much on the ROI. A lot of Cold Start marketing focuses on planting the seed for future patients. You want them talking at the beginning and to remember you when they need eye care. 

Shelby's book recommendation:

• Word of Mouth Marketing by Andy Sernovitz

Key Takeaways:

1. One out of every 4 eye exams occurs within a PECAA practice and 1 of every $5 spent on optical goods happens in a PECAA practice. 
2. At PECAA, we are passionate more than anything about supporting the power of independence. 
3. Great clinical patient care is great business and great, profitable business is great patient care. 
4. PECAA Max is the industry's only, monthly membership fee model that allows access to a comprehensive buying group, consolidated billing, deep alliance vendor deals, and business services and advising that helps our members grow and thrive. Consolidated billing saves at least one team member and at least 2-3 days of time at the end of each month to reconciling each vendor bill. 
5. Success goes well beyond discounts and savings. You cannot save your way to prosperity. 

Key Takeaways:

1. True sales is not persuading or convincing someone else to buy your product or service. Sales really should be seen as the process of helping someone get what they want and/or need.
2. "No" is not a bad word to hear in the sales process. The faster you can get to the "no", the easier and faster it will be to get to the solution that creates a win-win for the patient and practice. Don't let the word "no" be taken personally.
3. Stop using the word "recommend." Start using "I'm prescribing."
4. Only educate patients on the features and benefits after you've received the patient's permission and only share the features and benefits that directly connect to the patient's problems and needs.

What Robert is reading:

• Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely 
• On The Road by Jack Kerouac

Key Takeaways:

1. Performance lenswear has the potential to provide greater visual performance for patients on a more customized level.
2. The metaverse provides a new opportunity to market to and communicate with potential patients. The metaverse is the convergence of physical and virtual realities, creating a new immersive experience for individuals. Business are getting involved in order to create these experiences with their own brand.
3. As more and more individuals join the metaverse, visual experiences provide significant opportunities to meet new needs and solve new problems with our patients.
4. Virtual stores and NFTs have the potential to expand in eye care, driving greater brand loyalty and connecting a physical experience to their virtual experience. NFT's could be leveraged within a practice to more advanced, white glove services or special experiences your practice provides. 

What Khizer is reading:

• Sapiens by Yuval Harari
• The Second Mountain by David Brooks

Key Takeaways

1. Marketing isn't just about growing sales. It's about helping patients feel connected to your practice before they step foot and after they leave.
2. 9 Key Tasks to Marketing Success
   1. Google Advertising
   2. Social Media
   3. Email Marketing
   4. Digital Ads
   5. SEO & Keywords
   6. Youtube/ Short Video Content
   7. Blog and Online Content
   8. Events & Trunk Shows
   9. Direct Marketing
3. Four Questions to Ask About Your Marketing Plan:
   1. What is your current revenue/ gross profit for the past twelve months?
   2. What are your current demographics/ patient personas?
   3. How are you currently spending your marketing dollars?
   4. What is your max capacity of patients?

What Shelby is reading:

• Verity by Colleen Hoover

Key Takeaways

1. Creating a great culture where employees can provide feedback and have their voices heard encourages them to be more engaged in their roles. More real time feedback is desired by many of your employees.
2. Employee engagement is not just the fun and activities, but the ability to connect their work to the mission of your practice.
3. Hiring well means finding the people who are great fits for your practice. Define what a great fit looks like and use the interview to determine whether or not they are.
4. Leverage your employees in the screening and interviews. As the owner/ doctor, be the vision caster even in the interview process.
5. Compensation and benefits aren’t just salary and healthcare. You must pay well enough, but recognize what it is important to your employees and provide that as a benefit.

What Tom is reading:

• The System by Joth Ricci

Key Takeaways:

1. Each business owner has within them a Technician, Manager, and Entrepreneur. Many small businesses are overrun by the Technician, leaving significant lacks in people management and entrepreneurial growth and ideation.
2. The goal of every owner should be to create a business in which they can leave for vacation without interrupting the flow of the business, patient care, or revenue flow.
3. Creating systems for each key part of the practice and hire great people to run with those systems. Delegate everything that does not require an OD license.
4. Your systems allow you to parachute in for patient care when you want and pull out to focus on the business or take time off when you want.

What Riley is reading:

• Redeeming Your Time by Jordan Raynor
• Tools of the Titans by Tim Ferriss

Key Takeaways:

1. To foster happier, healthier people in your business, you need to create an environment for authentic conversations. Being outside your business and in nature helps facilitate better conversations.
2. Consider doing your one on ones as Walkie-Talkies. Taking a walk through the park, on a trail, or just around the block.
3. Get started by listening to understand, not just to respond. Utilize empathy and assume good intent. Get deeper to the emotion of how both you and your team member feels. Great questions to use:
   1. What's giving or taking energy from you now?
   2. What brings you joy?
4. 4:3:2:1
   1. Four stories
   2. Three facts
   3. Two quotes
   4. One question
5. Implement Fresh-Air Fridays (or any day of the week) when you host your weekly staff meeting. Get your team outside to discuss the strategy and needs of the business.

What Bart is reading:

• The Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz

Key Takeaways

1. Buying Groups were born in the 80s as a response to retailers entering the eye care space. The broad vendor discounts and consolidated billing allowed independent eye care professionals to compete with the retailers on a different level. 
2. Alliance Groups were born in the 90s and early 2000s as a response continued change in the market. Not only did independents need volume-based discounts, but business resources, education, and more sophisticated business solutions. 
3. Now, practices are facing additional challenges from e-commerce and managed vision care. The groups of the future need to address these. 
4. In order to face the future of independent eye care practices, owners need to leverage the size and strength of a combined buying group and alliance group together. 

What Derrick is Reading:

• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Harari
• A Troublesome Inheritance by Nicholas Wade

Key Takeaways:

1. Always look at data with the goal of hearing the whole story. Numbers are only so important - the context surrounding the numbers is what is most important.
2. Tracking and following your metrics regularly allows you to make small course corrections to stay on track. Smaller, easier decisions are far simpler and less stressful than having to solve bigger problems that could have been prevented.
3. As you plan for 2022, leverage your KPI's to identify areas of weakness and opportunity for you to set next year's goals for improvement. Review them at least quarterly (ideally monthly or more frequently) to track progress. 
4. Key metrics to track:
   1. Revenue Per Patient
   2. Frame Capture Rate
   3. Other Capture Rates - Retinal Imaging, Contact Lens, Annual Supply, A/R
   4. Revenue Per Contact Lens Fit
   5. Daily CL %
   6. Sphere, Toric, MF, Specialty Breakdown
5. Do not be afraid to share KPI numbers with your team. Use the numbers to encourage their success and your practice's success.

Key Takeaways:

1. Avoid the elevator analysis. If some data metrics are up, avoid immediately jumping to things being good. It is critical to ask why and understand what reasons revenue is up or another metric has improved. Data tells a story. Knowing the whole story gives you confidence to make the right decisions for your practice
2. Set aside 30 minutes each month to review your financials monthly. Put the previous months side by side and look for what jumps out. Spend more in depth time quarterly with your numbers.
3. Key Data Points to Review:
4. Any improvement in any of these key metrics hits the bottom line
5. Budgeting is critical. Begin with your P&L and adjust for a set amount of growth. Build in COGS, staffing, administrative expenses and build in as percentage of new revenue. From there, fill in other static expenses. Build in any other known big variable expenses you know will happen in 2022.

What Bryan is reading:

• Make Your Next Shot Your Best Shot by Dr. Bob Rotella

Email Dr. Manning to get ahold of our free budgeting template!

Key Takeaways:

1. Consolidation in the eye care industry has been going on for more than fifty years. Consolidation on the practice side has been happening for the last 10+ years - 2200 practices have sold to private equity in the last 10 years.
2. If your plan is to sell to another doctor, it is important to be involved with your alma mater and network with students to find a good associate. Second, you'll need to finance part of the sale for the associate. Third, don't ever stop focusing on growing your practice.
3. If you're looking to sell to private equity, understanding your EBITDA number and what multiples PE companies are paying for a practice. Understanding each PE company's approaches is critical. Do not take on new debt or sign a long term contract if you're interested in selling in the next five years. Tighten your operations and processes and look for ways to grow your practice.
4. Consider a multiple arbitrage approach. Join together with local practices to create a more profitable entity where each partner practice could receive more than what it'd be worth on its own.

What Derrick is Reading:

1. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
2. Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari

Key Takeaways:

1. The Membership Economy focuses well beyond the transaction. It's about creating long-lasting customer relationships so the individual gets all their future needs from one business. Your patients always have choice, so you have to optimize your business around their long term desired outcomes.
2. When you have a patient that refuses to return for a comprehensive exam, really be curious about why. Understanding why they leave is critical to your long term success in meeting patient needs.
3. Take the time to define who your best customers are and who are your middle of the road customers. What are the differences between them? 
4. Re-evaluate your onboarding/ engagement process. Are there areas you can improve?
5. Remember to meet the patients' needs when they're in the awareness phase of the patient journey. 

What Robbie is reading: 

1. Presenting Virtually by Patti Sanchez
2. The Long Game by Dorie Clark
3. Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen

Robbie's Books:

1. The Forever Transaction
2. The Membership Economy

1. The COVID-19 pandemic caused consumers to rethink their loyalties to their brand, providing significant opportunities for practices to gain patients they did not have before.
2. As you chat with your patients, ask them deeper questions about their own story. Listening the stories they tell will give you insight into their deeper motivators.
3. Human Truth is found by putting yourself in the customer's shoes and listening with empathy. We cannot use our perception of their experience to influence our business decisions.
4. Do a snap test. If you have an idea, try it out and see if it's successful. If not, scrap it. If it is, grow it!

What Daryl is reading:

1. You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters by Kate Murphy
2. Social Chemistry: Decoding the Elements of Human Connection by Marissa King
3. Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know by Adam Grant

Key Takeaways:

1. According to gallup, engaged employees drive a 21% increase in revenue, will have less absenteeism, stay longer, and provide better customer service. An engaged employee is not only happy but will go the extra mile in their job daily.
2. Data shows that employees want the ability to have more work-life balance, more time with their family, and the flexibility to work from home.
3. The RING Philosophy
   1. Relationships: Employees want to have relationships with the people they work with, most importantly with their supervisor.
   2. Included: Employees want to feel a sense of belonging in the business. Team building, lunches, holiday parties work to improve feelings of inclusion. You have to show your level of value in each team member.
   3. Needed: Employees want to feel needed and they need to know exactly how their work moves the practice's mission forward.
   4. Growth: Employees need opportunities to grow, including opportunities to be promoted and to advance their knowledge and skills.
4. Providing quality feedback is the easiest way to advance the RING philosophy.

What Lee Ann is reading:

• An Unquenchable Thirst: A Memoir by Mary Johnson

Key Takeaways:

1. Your systems are perfectly designed for the results you're getting. If you're not getting the results you want, you have to change your systems or your playbook. Your playbook should be short and sweet.
2. Your playbook should help you maximize efficiency and standardize the quality and experience each patient that walks through the door receives. Your playbook impacts repeatable, predictable success.
3. Everyone should be involved in building your practice playbook.
4. We cannot measure performance if there aren't metrics to track. With regards to your business, what is your Economic Denominator specific to your practice that drives your success? With limited time and resources, your Economic Denominator impacts the decisions you make for your business.
5. Each team member and employee should have at least one personal economic denominator that drives your business's success. Tracking this helps manage performance.

More Resources:

• The E-Myth by Michael Gerber
• Traction by Gino Wickman

What Brian is reading:

• BE 2.0 by Jim Collins

Learn more about HEA+PECAA and how membership can help you grow your business!

Key Takeaways:

1. Do you have a purpose for your business that goes beyond your personal purpose as a doctor? What it is? How are you communicating that to your people?
2. Your business strategy is simply how you distinguish yourself from other practices and compete in your community. What are your Kept Promise Indicators?
3. Your people are your greatest assets - you cannot be profitable without them. Investing in them is key to your success. Your team members are connecting with patients throughout the entire journey and reinforce the purpose you've established. The right person in the right seat makes all the difference.
4. There are two dimension to finding the right. The first is being clear on your culture and who are the people you love being with. The second is being clear on the results you want from the people you have on your team. Have you defined your values and outcomes and do you look for them in your interviews?

Tune in next week to learn what Brian is reading and learn more about HEA+PECAA and how membership can help you grow your business!

Key Takeaways:

1. Innovation within the customer experience begins with creating greater value with patients for the products and services you offer, makes accessing that products and services more easily, AND makes it more enjoyable to transact.
2. To deepen the relationship with the patient and customer, it begins with evaluating and understanding the needs, characteristics, capacities, circumstances. Empathy mapping and customer journey mappings make this understanding easier.
3. The patient journey begins long before they step foot in your office. These steps of the journey are influenced heavily by your ability to make the experience is easy, valuable, and enjoyable. Success here addresses these three items.
4. There are multiple journeys within a practice, based on the services and products the patient is accessing. Defining these journeys make it easier to innovate and make changes.
5. To be successful in practice, patients want to be a part of co-creating value and collaborating for their own eye care and success. 

JC's Books:

1. Speaking Frankly About Customer Experience Management
2. Series Relationships: The 7 Elements of a Successful Business Relationships
3. CRM to the People 

What JC is reading:

Leadership: Theory and Practice by Peter Northouse

Key Takeaways:

1. Your competition is getting more and more sophisticated. To be successful, you have to be leveraging data and metrics and spend time focusing on your business.
2. Community is critical to success. Being together as independents, sharing ideas and challenges, and collaborating to support each other's success is our secret weapon.
3. Partnership is powerful. A true partner is one who cares about your success and working with you so you accomplish the goals you have for your practice.
4. Together, HEA+PECAA will bring new resources and opportunities to redefine success for the independent eye care professional.

What Lance is reading:

• Deceptive Delivery by Mark Graham

Takeways:

1. Prepare, prepare, prepare. If your front desk team is not prepared for any scheduling challenges, insurance issues, or who is coming in that day, you're already behind. An efficient check in process leads to a great patient experience and presets the patient to allow a little wait time later in the patient journey. 
2. Leverage technology to move as many check in processes to before the patient sets foot in the office: digital intake forms, patient engagement software, and insurance verification. 
3. Verify the patient's insurance ahead of time. This contributes to a great patient experience, no matter how much of the patient's responsibility it may be. 
4. Provide goals for your front desk team, scripts to use, and a general outline for a day at the front desk. Cross-train for a more efficient check in process and better patient experience. 

What Lauren is reading:

• 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell

Learn more about how the PracticeAdvantage program can help build your practice here or by calling 800.959.2020, Option 3. 

Key Takeaways:

1. Patients want to be empowered and knowledgeable when it comes to purchasing your treatment plan. They will be doing research at home before stepping foot in your practice.
2. Patients want an e-commerce solution and offering one improves the patient experience significantly. When they have a great patient experience, they are more likely to purchase from you.
3. Integration is key. Get your team on board with integrating the solution and then market/ communicate your new capabilities to your patients, both via your marketing and patient communication tool as well as communicating it in office.
4. Patients want to be able to purchase multiple pairs for multiple outfits, just more on their terms.

What Dermot is reading:

• The President's Daughter by James Patterson and Bill Clinton
• Losing My Virginity by Richard Branson
• Undisputed Truth by Mike Tyson

To learn more about HEA's Program with Ocuco, contact a Solutions Specialist at 800.959.2020, Option 3. 

Key Takeaways:

1. Patients want to purchase from you and want the convenience of ordering from an e-commerce platform. 
2. Patients are also consumers and often make decisions in the context of being a consumer. Thinking of them as such does not diminish the doctor patient relationship. 
3. E-commerce platforms can enhance the patient experience by providing more control to your patients, reminding them when it's time to order, and providing direct shipping. 
4. Engage your team in the implementation process so they can be fully invested in its success.

What Dr. Rhue is reading:

Traction: Get a Grip On Your Business by Gino Wickman

Learn more about Healthy Eyes Advantage and PracticeAdvantage by clicking the links!

Takeaways: 

1. Engage your entire team in the optical sales process. Everyone on your team should be able to sell eyewear.
2. Reevaluate your approach to cross training. Can all team members can jump in to adjust, dispense, repair. Making a patient wait is one of the biggest causes for a poor experience and a negative review.
3. Consider adding clinical opticians to your exam room to improve patient perception, education, and treatment compliance.
4. Stop asking, "Do you want to buy glasses today?"
5. Embrace the reality that you have to be able to afford to deliver the level of care you desire to give your patients.

What Shaun is reading:

1. The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by Daniel Coyle
2. The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek
3. Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek

Learn more about Healthy Eyes Advantage and the PracticeAdvantage program by following the links or emailing PracticeAdvantage@hea2020.com.

Key Takeaways:

1. Engage your team with their ideas for improving your pretesting process. Host regular meetings to do this. 
2. Schedule optimization is critical to practice efficiency. 
3. Put an emphasis on cross training your team. Each team member should be skilled enough to jump in across departments to build efficiency and serve patients. Don't be afraid to jump in to work up the patient yourself when needed. 
4. Time your team members through the pre-testing process and look for opportunities to improve. Communicate clearly with your team when those opportunities for improvement exist. 

What Maria is reading:

Review of Optometric Business

Learn more about Healthy Eyes Advantage and PracticeAdvantage!

Key Takeaways:

1. Leverage your EHR platform to improve charting efficiency. Take the time to train yourself and your team on utilizing your platform more effectively. 
2. Consider passing off additional exam room elements to your staff to improve efficiency. Give them the opportunity to rise to the occasion. They likely will. Baby steps are ok. 
3. Empower your team to begin patient education from the moment they walk through the door. 
4. Time your exam room process and determine where your inefficiencies lie. 

What Masoud is reading:

The Idea Driven Organization: Unlocking the Power of Bottom-Up Ideas by Alan Robinson

Learn more about Healthy Eyes Advantage at hea2020.com. 

Key Takeaways:

1. To become more efficient in your practice, begin with your team, both doctors and employees. They are closest to their roles in patient care. They likely have ideas for how the office can be more efficient. Build a culture of sharing, where everyone's opinion is valued. 
2. Don't be afraid of incorporating telehealth into your practice flow to improve efficiency. It does not have to replace the in person experience your patients have.
3. Efficiency for the sake of efficiency is not the right approach. Don't let your focus on being more efficient negatively affect your patient experience and your patient's willingness to comply with your treatment plan. 
4. How to start today:
   1. Be open to change
   2. Get baseline data: patient surveys, team surveys, KPI metrics

What Dr. Mack is reading:

1. Your Day, Your Way: The Fact and Fiction Behind Your Daily Decisions by Timothy Caulfield

Learn more about HEA and the PracticeAdvantage program at hea2020.com or by emailing practiceadvantage@hea2020.com. 

Key Takeaways:

1. Change Management is a science. To effectively change your practice
   1. Start with a vision for change and cast it.
   2. Equip your team with the skills needed to implement a new process or procedure.
   3. Give your team the "WIIFM." How are they incentivized to be successful in change?
   4. Determine if your team has the resources needed to be successful.
   5. Storyboard and create an action plan for implementing the change.
2. When was the last time you asked yourself, "Why do we do things this way?"
3. Change cannot occur without clear communication. Avoid sabotaging the change you want. 
4. Meet regularly to maintain everyone the same page. 

Key Take Aways:

1. Start with your team. When it comes to implementing a new technology, ask your team members first their thoughts and how they think you can be most successful implementing the new technology. 
2. Always remember WIIFM (What's In It For ME) with your team. Your team will easily connect how a new technology or revenue generator will benefit the practice owner. Leverage goals and statistics to track success and directly benefit your team members when they are successful with the new technology. 
3. To be truly successful with a new technology or service create a win-win-win. Make sure your new technology has noble cause - benefiting and improving patient outcomes and the patient experience, in addition to the both the owner and team benefitting. 

What Larry is Reading:

Books on Grit, Emotional Intelligence, and Happiness. 

Takeaways:

1. Review your P&L to understand your overhead, fixed, and variable expenses. Leverage those numbers to understand how much revenue your practice needs to generate per hour, per day, and/or per patient to generate a profit. 
2. Pull reports from your PM system to understand the average revenue per patient for each plan that you take. What's your current breakdown of insurance utilization? What insurances generate the highest revenue per patient? Are there insurances that don't generate enough revenue per patient to cover your costs of doing business?
3. Make the decision to drop plans that are losing you money. 
4. Get creative with businesses in the area to attract more patients out of network so you can continue to see the patients that you serve while making your business more profitable. 

Books Jeremy is reading:

Breathe by James Nestor

Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

Key Takeaways:

1. Your vision statement should be clear and concise, focusing on why you exist and where you as a business are going. It is aspirational in nature.
2. Communicate your vision to your patients and your team as often as you can.
3. Leverage Aristotle's rhetoric (Logos, Ethos, and Pathos) and the power of story when you share the vision and inspire your team

Other Resources/ What Susan is Reading:

1. Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton
2. Influence: Science and Practice by Robert Cialdini

Key Takeaways to Implement This Week

1. Focus on empathizing with your patients and staff around problems they’re facing in their daily lives and in their work lives.
2. Put a whiteboard in your staff common area and encourage them to write their ideas on the board. Consider posting the challenges you want to solve within the practice. Avoiding anonymity builds trust.
3. Ask each of your team member these questions: “What’s on your mind? What’s an opportunity where you think we can do better?” Don't be afraid of silence in waiting for a response.

More Resources: 

Change by Design by Tim Brown

IDEOU

Design Thinking: How It Helped Me Build a Specialty Contact Lens Niche

What Mike is reading:

1. John Adams by David McCullough
2. Platform Revolution by Geoffrey Parker

1. Implement the new idea that you’ve been thinking about for awhile. Even if it doesn’t work out, FAIL stands for First Attempt In Learning.
2. Engage your team for their new ideas for how to improve your practice.
3. Find ways to pay your team more. Set goals for financial growth and devise an incentive structure so your team gets to share in the growth the practice obtains. Motivate them to fill your schedule and grow the business. 
4. Take the leap and work with a consultant to help you achieve your practice goals. The ROI on working with a consultant can be upwards of 10X. 

Learn more about the Healthy Eyes Advantage membership and the PracticeAdvantage program, where your first month is free, at www.hea2020.com or by calling 800.959.2020, Option 3. 

1. Your practice's success begins with designing the life you want to live. Design Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans provides a unique framework for designing the life you want to live and the life you want your practice to provide.
2. A growth mindset is essential for practice success. To maintain that focus on growth, identifying your specific motivators makes it easier to avoid complacency.
3. Encourage your team to have a growth mindset, by hiring people who know how to problem solve and

Learn more about Healthy Eyes Advantage membership and the PracticeAdvantage program (your first month is FREE!) at www.hea2020.com or by calling 800.959.2020, Option 3.