As we discussed last time, it’s a fine thing to be keeping some metrics in the practice. And a finer thing to be keeping those metrics relative to clearly established objectives so we know for what we strive. And even finer yet to engage your team by having staff give the metrics reports in those Weekly Vital Signs Reviews. But we do all of that with one simple end goal – IMPACT!
The whole idea is growing the practice. It’s certainly impressive for a small business to have its team doing these reports – to have a team that’s engaged not only in the work, but also the OUTCOMES of the work, as well. Spending that critical hour each month together using the vital sign performances to make a practice diagnosis and form together the ever-important treatment plan (our designated areas of focus and the initiatives we’ll take in the week ahead) is outstanding practice management. If you and your team are doing this, I’m truly impressed. You’re doing what only a fraction of practices (of all small businesses) are doing. Well done, CEO. So let’s leverage that outstanding practice management to achieve exactly for what we strive by doing it –IMPACT!
Receipts
Last time, we talked about IMPACT on the “buck stops here” practice number – the Receipts metric. Many of you held your own or even grew your Receipts in 2020, despite patient volume being down. This is an incredible thing if you think about it. Very few businesses can see their customer volume at least reduced if not hammered by a pandemic and hold level or even increase revenue. Many of you did exactly that, which speaks volumes about the relationship between your team and your patient base. It’s nothing shy of incredible. That said, as we look toward better days for our nation and community, it’s likely you’ve set your revenue goals higher for 2021. And we’ve established it’s you and your team that control the focus and efforts that will make them happen.
Revenue-per-Patient
The other metric we discussed last time, actually a subcategory of Receipts, was Revenue-per-Patient. It is the performance of this metric that has kept Receipts relatively steady despite reduced volume in 2020, and in my mind, this metric is the great silver lining of the pandemic. We were able to see first-hand the IMPACT of “doing our jobs” as eye doctors. When we spend that quality time in discussion of treatment, and reduce that to clear, mission-based recommendations (using the actual words, “I recommend…”), a wonderful thing happens. Revenue-per-Patient goes up. The health of the practice tracks directly proportionate to the quality of life of the patient base. That’s not the order of priority for every eyecare provider, to be sure, but it is the order and is happening in our practices, Colleagues. I’m proud to be aligned with practices, with people, like that.
We talked then, last post, about a number of mission-based initiatives that IMPACT Revenue-per-Patient (I encourage you to circle back and read the last post if you haven’t) and to those, I’d like to add some IMPACT discussion on another of the four metrics we’re keeping together – one that considerably impacts Revenue-per-Patient – and that’s Capture Rate.
That stands to reason, right? If we’re doing examinations that result in generating prescriptions, Revenue-per-Patient is much higher in the practice if we’re the one to fill those prescriptions. Yet Capture Rate seems to be atop the Endangered Species List of metrics in many private optometric practices these days.
And why wouldn’t it be? I mentioned in the SUMMIT TALK Podlecture this month that there is a frequent vision product advertiser here in my neck of the woods constantly hammering $57 for the exam and two pairs of glasses, complete. Seriously, $58? Yup. And of course, lots of ads by people that want to mail you frames and have you pick them out at home (minus any expertise that totally impacts the experience of wearing the glasses – don’t mind that, right?). Add vision plans shutting practices out of being on panels (yes, that’s happening), big box stores, the internet… you know the deal. These are just some of the reasons Capture Rate is under siege.
So let’s talk about some strategies we can deploy to keep Capture Rate off the Endangered Species List for your practice.
Capture Rate Strategy #1 –Keep Your Team Close to the Mission Motive
When we think of Capture Rate, we naturally think more about marketing than management. And rightfully so, as this is a product and competitive consideration. That said, however, the first and foremost step in increasing Capture Rate is a management rather than a marketing initiative.
That initiative is keeping your team close to and engaged in continuous focus on and dialogue about mission. As we’ve discussed, there are only four motives that drive our work – fear, anger, ambition and mission. And the greatest of these, without a doubt, is mission. As we covered in the Podlecture —Brain Surgeons Don’t do Lifestyle Selling – making recommendations (that result in “captures”) based on mission, on your patient’s best quality of life, are vastly more impactful than scripted sales presentations based on driving revenue. I appreciate the ambition motive of the sales presentation, but a mission-driven doctor and team will outperform every other motive. It’s what keeps patient care from becoming sales. And because of good old Marketing Rule #6, (what’s good for the patient is good for the practice!), this will, without a doubt, impact Capture Rate.
Capture Rate Strategy #2 – Establish Your Capture Rate Objective and Report the Metric
Here’s another management initiative (and we thought Capture Rate was all marketing!). Actually, three management initiatives:
1. Clearly establish the practice’s objective for Capture Rate. Like all practice metrics, we don’t start working initiatives to grow Capture Rate without first clearly defining, as a team, what we’re trying to achieve. As we’ve discussed, it’s just like acuity – you wouldn’t work on impacting my acuity if you didn’t first have an objective in mind (20/20 of course).
2. Assign a person in the practice (likely someone in optical) to gather the Capture Rate data for the week (number of Rx’s filled divided by Rx’s written).
3. Have a team member report our Capture Rate result for the week vs our defined objective and have team dialogue about ideas and initiatives to continue a favorable trend or bridge any gap. Over time, this pointed dialogue from your bright, observant, creative team can’t help but have impact!
As we’ve discussed, it’s like the stock market. When we have an objective for the share price, and we know today’s actual share price, we can and will naturally and effectively take initiatives to increase it. Thus the power of team reporting, and basically, the reason the stock market has a bias over time to go up!
Capture Rate Strategy #3 -- Positioning the Prescription as Serious Business
Alas, a marketing strategy!
Think about prescriptions for a moment from an average person’s point of view. A prescription by any doctor typically gets you the exact same thing regardless of where it was filled. So if I have a prescription for a certain med filled at an independent pharmacy, or have it filled at COSTCO, or get it in the mail, I get the EXACT same result. Literally. There is absolutely no difference in the quality of the med, my experience in taking it or my results, regardless of who filled the Rx.
So again, think about it. Doesn’t it stand to reason, as Joe or Josephine average consumer, that that’s just how it is with prescriptions? If I get my glasses at COSTCO, or at your practice, or they show up in my mailbox, it was the same prescription either way, so, like my meds, it’s the exact same experience regardless of where I got them. Right? WRONG! Oh, so wrong!
How could someone think like that? Well, remembering that you think about this stuff more before mid-week than the average consumer does in her lifetime, isn’t the more logical question, WHY WOULDN’T THEY?
My definition of marketing is anything you do to cause or sustain value. And my definition of value is the extent to which people perceive what you do as good. So the entire purpose of marketing is to teach people who don’t know what you know to know what you know so they’ll value the way you value. Since we know the very major differences that occur when you have your prescription filled here at our place vs having it show up in your mailbox, we need simply to follow Marketing Rule #2 – If you want someone to know something, TELL ‘EM!
We need to teach patients (and potential patients) to know there is a tremendous difference in the experience of wearing glasses based on what kind of product is used to fill the prescription, and the relationship within which that product, that prescription, comes! An Rx filled is not an Rx filled is not an Rx filled. Not in our business, anyway. So tell them that. Make it part of the mission to teach them to know what you know, and watch what happens to your Capture Rate.
Capture Rate Strategy #4 –The Baton Pass
We covered what I call the Baton Pass (transition of the patient from doctor to staff) well in the last blog post, but it simply must be mentioned in any discussion about increasing Capture Rate.
As you may recall, to make things crystal clear, I like for the baton pass to occur in the presence of three parties (patient, doctor, person taking it from here), and for three things to occur in what I call the Trio of Participation:
1. Doctor repeats the recommendation (circle back to Post 4 on Impacting the Metrics for more)
2. Doctor asks the person receiving the baton to take a specific action (see Post 4 for more)
3. Doctor makes a deliberate, structured exit (see Post 4 for more)
This impacts Capture Rate, Friends! As we discussed, it’s interesting how many colleagues are working reduced schedules since early last spring, and yet, are holding steady with revenue despite that. I’ve heard a number of speculations as to why this is, but I’m certain of the answer. It’s simply that we take time (because we HAVE time) to do things like this when our schedules are lighter. And look, and realize, what impact that has had on Revenue-Per-Patient and its sub-metrics like Capture Rate.
Capture Rate Strategy #5 – Have those Unique Value Propositions
The more things look the same (internet, managed care, etc.), the greater the opportunities for the creative to look different. So if mass marketing and commoditization of vision products has made it all look the same, here’s our big chance!
In marketing, separating yourself with a strategy of incomparability, breaking away from the competitive pack, is called the Unique Value Proposition (or back in my day in marketing school, the Unique Selling Proposition). This concept is the centerpiece of all marketing strategy, and it has huge impact on Capture Rate.
How about an Unconditional Eyeglass Breakage Warranty that’s vastly better than everyone else’s. You use great products, right? “None better,” you say. So stand behind those products like no other…temple-to-temple, baby! And by the way, my discovery has been that as you up your game on breakage warranty, you don’t really end up replacing many (if any) more broken frames or lenses. It’s pretty rare for patients to break their lenses, and most of the better frames have great warranty coverage from the manufacturer.
Or perhaps a Prescription Accuracy Guarantee aligned well with Marketing Rule #4 (the less I have to lose, the more likely I am to do it). Not experiencing right vision? We’ll take care of it (which we pretty much already do, we’ve just never marketed that).
And of course, don’t forget private label products in your inventory and their impact on Capture Rate. Not only is this a Unique Value Proposition, not available at the mail-out places, but these products are also typically unusually profitable for you.
Another great UVP strategy is specialty niche vision markets and the consumer followings that come with them. My decades-long friend and consulting partner, Dr. Brad Williams, was the king of this when he was in practice. He’s a trap shooter (a pretty good one at that), and on league night at the club, people would literally line-up to talk with him. It was practically annoying. He became the number-one information source for people asking the age-old target shooting question – why am I missing?! For his entirety in practice, every trap and skeet shooter for miles around (talking around the state) came to see Brad and bought their glasses at Optique Eyewear Center. Of course, along with our “regular glasses,” all of us had multiple color interchangeable lenses for different weather conditions (sunny, cloudy, nighttime, etc.), right? So, I buy the fancy Italian shooting frames, and get three sets of lenses with it (plus my “regular” glasses of course). That’s a 400% Capture Rate (four filled Rx’s on one Rx written), times literally hundreds of patients that came from miles around (as did their families and neighbors, of course). Do that math with Capture Rate in mind. I’ve never seen anything like it, all from one simple specialty.
Don’t forget your Vision Benefits Program for companies that don’t have a vision benefit for their employees (and no third party involved – woot woot!). That’s a UVP all day long. Also, for the 50% of us in America that DON’T have eyecare/vision insurance and don’t have that Vision Benefits Program through their employer, let’s have that VIP Eyecare Plan for private-pay patients?
Capture Rate Strategy #6 – REPEAT for Contact Lenses!
Of course, Capture Rate applies to your contact lens practice as well. So, think about all the strategies aforementioned, and REPEAT!
Here’s the thing, Colleagues. To win the battle, the war, for value – to grow Capture Rate – we have to bring the game to our field. We have to leverage our strengths, not waste valuable strategic time worrying about competition. Let’s put these and other management and marketing strategies in place to do that. Revenue-per-Patient and Capture Rate are both metrics we and our teams can largely control if we so choose. So let’s do it!