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Optometry Practice Management Consulting

Optometry practice management consulting from advisors who've done the vision plan math, the billing cleanups and the operational fixes no one wanted to touch.

Management Consulting for Optometry Practices

Optometry practice owners learn early that clinical skill and business performance do not track together. An OD can run excellent exams, maintain strong patient relationships, and stay current on everything from myopia management to ocular disease, and still watch margin erode year after year without understanding exactly where it goes.

Practice owners who work with SMCG want operations clean enough to step back from daily problem-solving. They want to know their numbers cold, make decisions from data instead of gut feel, and build something worth more every year.

We work with independent ODs running single locations, multi-location groups managing growth, and owners preparing to scale, take on partners, or transition out of daily operations.

Optometry practice management consulting services

Practice Operations for Independent Optometry Practices

Owners who have their operations dialed can leave at a reasonable hour, take a vacation without fielding calls, and spend chair time on patients rather than putting out fires. The difference shows up in whether the owner runs the practice or the practice runs the owner.

When a practice stays busy but the financials don't reflect it, the breakdown usually sits somewhere between the schedule and the deposit. We trace patient flow from arrival through optical handoff, map where time gets lost, and identify which staffing or scheduling changes would recover capacity. The result is an operation that converts a full schedule into collected revenue without requiring the owner to work harder or longer.

Optical Dispensary and Inventory Operations

Purchasing data shows which frame lines move and which sit on walls waiting for markdowns. Capture rate tracking by provider and by optical associate reveals where handoffs convert and where they break down.

Inventory aging reports flag capital tied up in product that should have been marked down or returned months ago. Vendor and lab renegotiations focus on turn rates, turnaround time, and remake rates rather than volume commitments that benefit reps more than practices.

We have rebuilt optical dispensary operations for practices across the country. The pattern is usually the same. Owners know margin is leaking from the dispensary but cannot pinpoint where. Our job is making that visible.

Staff Workflow and Patient Scheduling

We start by measuring how time actually moves through the practice rather than how it should move according to the schedule template. The gaps between the two tell most of the story.

Scheduling rebuilt around optical handoff timing rather than just exam slot capacity changes how the rest of the day flows. Cross-training lets staff flex between clinical and dispensary roles during volume swings, which reduces both overtime and idle time. Bottleneck identification shows where the day compresses and what it would take to recover that capacity.

Competing with Retail and Online Optical

Practices that hold capture rate against Warby Parker, Zenni, and big-box optical have built something their competitors cannot match. Same-day fulfillment for common prescriptions keeps patients from walking out to order elsewhere. Contact lens subscriptions with auto-ship and auto-bill reduce the friction that drives patients to online sellers. Frame guarantees and no-questions adjustment policies remove hesitation at the point of purchase.

Not all of these fit every market. A practice in a retirement community faces different competitive pressure than one near a university campus. Our work involves figuring out which retention systems fit a given patient base and whether the staff can sustain them without burning out. The practices that win on capture rate have implemented two or three of these well rather than attempting all of them poorly.

Optometry practice financial management and accounting

Multi-Location Optometry Practice Management

We work with optometry groups at the stage where owner attention no longer scales with the business. Locations that produced consistent results when the owner visited weekly start drifting when visits drop to monthly. Financial data arrives too late to catch problems while they are still small.

Owners running multiple locations well have solved this. They spend time on growth and strategy rather than firefighting the same issues at different addresses.

Operational Standardization Across Locations

Clinical workflows, staff training protocols, and patient experience standards can travel across sites when documented properly. Some operations benefit from strict consistency. Others need location-specific adaptation based on patient demographics and local competitive conditions.

We have worked with groups that over-standardized and created resentment among experienced staff. We have also worked with groups that left too much to local discretion and could not figure out why performance varied so widely between sites. The question is always which processes need to be identical and which just need to be visible. Our role is answering that before imposing structure that creates more friction than it removes.

Centralized Billing and Inventory Systems

Consolidated AR management reduces collection delays and write-offs by catching problems before they age. Unified frame purchasing improves vendor leverage. Shared inventory access between sites eliminates duplicate slow-moving stock sitting in multiple locations simultaneously.

Not every function benefits from centralization. A billing consolidation that works for a five-location group clustered in one metro fails for a group spread across three states with different payer mixes. Inventory centralization that saves money on purchasing can slow turnaround time enough to hurt patient satisfaction.

Geography, patient demographics, and how the locations currently operate all affect the decision. We advise on what to pull together and what to leave local, and we have unwound centralizations that looked good on paper but made the operation harder to run.

Private Equity and Consolidation Readiness

The offers arrive whether owners expect them or not. PE platforms and regional consolidators are buying optometry practices, and the owners who get the best terms are the ones who prepared before the conversation started.

Preparation means operations documented well enough that the business can transfer without the founder in every decision. It means financials clean enough to survive diligence without surprises. It means knowing what the practice is actually worth rather than guessing based on revenue multiples from articles written three years ago.

We prepare practices for sale and we also work with owners who have decided to stay independent. Both paths require knowing where the operation actually stands. The owners who wait until they are ready to sell usually discover problems that take two years to fix.

Vision Plan Economics and Payer Strategy

Our payer analysis work starts with a question most owners cannot answer precisely. What does it actually cost to see a patient on each vision plan the practice accepts? The answer determines which plans are worth keeping, which are worth renegotiating, and which are quietly draining the practice every time a patient books.

The math is specific to each practice. Overhead structure, staff efficiency, and optical capture rate all affect whether a given plan makes money or loses it. The answer changes as costs rise and contracts come up for renewal.

Vision Plan vs Medical Insurance Revenue Mix

Many practices leave money on the table by defaulting to vision plan billing for visits that involve medical diagnosis or treatment. A patient who comes in for a routine exam but has dry eye disease, early cataract, or diabetic changes may qualify for medical billing at significantly higher rates.

Revenue split analysis between vision plans and medical insurance reveals where this is happening. We identify the services being under-billed and help practices capture that revenue with proper documentation and coding. The compliance exposure is manageable when the documentation supports the billing.

Payer Contract Negotiation and Reimbursement

Fee schedule review against current costs shows which contracts still make sense and which have fallen behind. Some practices have been on the same vision plan rates for five years while their costs increased twenty percent.

We provide renegotiation support for practices ready to push back. For practices expanding into medical plan networks beyond vision-only billing, credentialing support gets providers enrolled and claims processing.

Optometry Practice Valuation and Ownership Transitions

Owners planning an exit in the next five to ten years build more valuable practices when they work backward from what buyers actually pay for. The premium goes to practices with transferable patient relationships, documented operations, and financials that survive diligence.

Practices built around a single owner who holds everything in their head sell for less, take longer to close, and often fail to close at all. The buyer cannot see what they are getting, which means they either walk away or discount the offer to account for the risk.

We help owners see their practice the way a buyer would see it. The gaps between those two views determine how much value is left on the table and how long it would take to close them.

Practice Appraisal for Sale or Partnership

Our valuation work includes both revenue-based and asset-based approaches. We document the factors affecting practice value and prepare the financial records and operational data that buyers and lenders require.

The goal is a number the owner can defend when a buyer pushes back and a package that holds together through diligence. Owners who go to market without this preparation spend months answering questions they should have anticipated and often accept lower offers because they cannot support the price they wanted.

Evaluating Consolidation Offers

Due diligence support for PE and consolidator acquisition offers includes analysis of deal structure, post-sale employment terms, and earnout provisions.

Earnouts deserve particular attention. They look attractive on paper but rarely pay out in full. The conditions attached to earnout payments favor the buyer, and post-acquisition decisions often make hitting the targets impossible regardless of how well the practice performs. We help owners understand what an offer actually contains, not just what the headline number suggests, before they sign anything.

Financial Management and Accounting for Optometry Practices

Our accounting work for optometry practices is built around a specific premise. Owners who can see exactly where margin comes from make better decisions than owners who manage from a single P&L line.

The practices that stay profitable through reimbursement pressure and rising costs are the ones that react before damage compounds. That requires monthly visibility into which services and products generate margin and which drain it.

Optical Revenue Tracking and Margin Management

Most practices carry frame lines and lens options they assume are profitable but have never measured. The assumption is based on manufacturer margin sheets or gut feel from years of selling.

We separate optical revenue from professional service revenue and track margin by product category. The analysis shows which parts of the dispensary actually contribute profit and which just cover their own overhead. The numbers sometimes confirm what the owner believed. Sometimes they reveal that a popular frame line has been losing money for years.

Contact Lens Revenue and Subscription Programs

Recurring revenue from contact lens subscriptions reduces attrition to online sellers and creates predictable monthly income that smooths cash flow. Auto-ship and auto-bill structures cut administrative work while keeping patients reordering through the practice rather than through 1-800-Contacts.

We design these programs and help practices implement them. The models that work are the ones patients actually use, which means pricing, frequency, and communication all have to fit how patients want to buy.

Performance Benchmarking and KPI Reporting

Revenue per exam, capture rate, optical margin, inventory turns, and AR days compared against industry benchmarks show where the practice stands relative to peers.

Knowing the numbers once is useful. Watching them monthly is what allows ownership to see trends before they become problems. Our ongoing financial reporting and accounting services track these metrics and flag when something moves in the wrong direction.

Optometry Billing Services

Vision and Medical Billing Integration

We handle both vision plan and medical insurance billing for optometry practices, including coding, modifier usage, and documentation that supports medical necessity when billing beyond routine vision services.

Many practices under-bill because they lack the coding knowledge to capture medical visits correctly. A patient seen for a routine exam who also has meibomian gland dysfunction or allergic conjunctivitis may qualify for additional medical billing, but the visit gets billed as routine because no one flagged the diagnosis. Other practices have been burned by audits and now code too conservatively, leaving legitimate revenue unclaimed out of caution.

We find the line that captures what the practice has earned without creating compliance exposure. For practices that need dedicated billing support, our revenue cycle management services provide end-to-end claims handling from charge entry through payment posting.

AmnioCore OP from Stability Biologics

Adding amniotic membrane treatments expands clinical capabilities while creating a new revenue stream from ocular surface conditions that would otherwise be referred out.

Amniotic Membrane Technology for Ocular Repair

AmnioCore OP is a cryopreserved amniotic membrane used in ocular surface repair. Applications include corneal defects, chemical burns, recurrent erosions, and post-surgical healing support. The membrane provides a biological scaffold that supports epithelial healing while reducing inflammation and scarring.

Available Sizes

AmnioCore OP is available in various sizes, allowing clinicians to select the optimal graft based on individual patient needs.

Single Layer — 5mm, 8mm, 10mm, 12mm, and 14mm
Dual Layer — 5mm, 8mm, 10mm, 12mm, and 14mm

Scientific Evidence

Amniotic membrane has been widely researched for its role in wound healing, showing potential in reducing inflammation, promoting epithelialization, and delivering key growth factors.

Garten A. A Closer Look at Amniotic Membrane Allografts for Wounds. Podiatry Today. 2014.

Holt Y. Amniotic Membrane Uses in Ophthalmology. Parent's Guide to Cord Blood Foundation. 2017.

Ordering and Practice Integration

We handle product ordering, storage requirement guidance, billing codes, and clinical protocols for practices incorporating amniotic membrane treatments. For practices new to biologics, setup support covers everything from inventory management to reimbursement so clinical teams can focus on patient selection and treatment delivery.

AmnioCore OP amniotic membrane allograft for optometry practices

To learn more, visit our AmnioCore OP page. To place an order, contact us at 832-323-3691.

Schedule Your Optometry Practice Consultation

Talk with us about where your optometry practice stands and what comes next. Whether you run an independent practice, manage multiple locations, or are weighing your options on ownership and growth, we can help you think through the decisions ahead.

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