NEW YORK—Eyecare practices of all sizes face many of the same day-to-day challenges. Not only are you managing a high level of patient care day in and day out, but you also have a business to run, staff to manage and demand to generate. All of these different aspects can add up to problems and high levels of stress for a practice owner. Today, we want to look at 4 shared challenges of many practices and give you some easy solutions to help you overcome them. Here’s how you can solve these 4 common eyecare practice problems.

Problem 1: Building a Strong, Reliable Team

Staffing is a problem that just about every small business owner faces. It’s challenging to first find the right employee to fill each role, and then another challenge to get them to stick around so you’re not stuck in a constant cycle of hiring. Hiring well from the start, and not rushing into a job offer because of the pressure to fill a need is the first place to start when building a strong team. While sometimes it’s nice to have your hands on every aspect of your practice, at the end of the day, you can’t do it all yourself. Start the hiring process off on the right foot by writing a strong job description that will attract the right candidates.

In that job description talk about the culture in your office and why someone will look forward to coming to work every day in your practice. Last but not least, if you’re able to provide competitive or unique benefits that an employee will find beneficial make sure to include those in the description as well.

Problem 2: Growing Your Patient Base

Practice growth isn’t possible without a constant stream of new patients flowing into your practice. But in a busy practice, things like marketing to generate that patient growth can get put on the backburner. Luckily there are a lot of quick and easy marketing strategies you can implement in your practice that don’t take up a lot of time or money to get started. Here are some of our favorite marketing resources to help your practice grow your patient base:

Problem 3: Workflow Limitations

The effectiveness of your office workflow how quickly and efficiently you can see patients in your practice. And, the effectiveness of your workflow is highly connected to your practice management and EHR system. Too much clicking or disconnected systems are two things that lead to inefficiencies throughout your workflow.

The most modern systems on the market strive at reducing clicks during a patient visit, have built-in tools so you can perform all your daily activities from inside one system not bouncing around from tool to tool, and relieves you of managing multiple expensive contracts. If your system isn’t meeting your current workflow needs, it might be time to check out some new options.

Problem 4: Managing Your Claims Cycle

Claim filing is one of the trickiest jobs in many eyecare practices. The knowledge required plus the heavy workload of a constant stream of claims makes managing the claim cycle challenging and time consuming. If you don’t have someone in your office who is in charge of claim filing and has the knowledge, time, and expertise to be efficient at the job, your practice could be leaving money on the table. If you’re struggling to keep up with your practice’s claims or you’ve recently lost your biller, a revenue cycle management (RCM) service could quickly help you get your claims back on track. An RCM service will let you focus less on claims by managing your submissions and working your rejections and denials.