Supplemental Information for Operations Management – Supplemental Information

If your office keeps an inventory of lenses, it’s important that everyone who handles any contact lenses knows where the appropriate storage location is. Also, an inventory list to indicate powers and quantity on-hand, so that whoever is ordering can verify if there is any on-hand at the office to dispense to the patient the same day of their appointment and prior to ordering. Implement a protocol to the ordering and limitations of quantity and brands on-hand. These are likely your top-selling brands with the most common parameters sold.

For offices utilizing an online ordering platform, continue to utilize the ordering and verification processes discussed earlier in the program. These may need to be modified, depending on the capacity of the platform. Implement schedules to follow up with online orders, you may want to include a confirmation message via your patient communication systems to ensure them that their order is on the way. This again, allows you to be proactive rather than reactive to common patient responses.

Some statistics your office may choose to follow and discuss during your daily huddle are the number of brand-new contact lens wearers on your schedule, and as well as the number of established contact lens wearers, and the number of contact lens checks. These numbers can call attention if we are introducing contact lenses enough and how time is allocated on our schedule. Although those numbers are more insightful to the owner and managers designing the schedule, it allows your team to mentally prep.

A few additional stats are the number of final contact lens prescriptions written and the number of walk-in contact lens prescriptions filled. The number of annual supplies sold, this does not include part-time wearers, and this aids in determining the annual supply capture rate. This is calculated by the number of annual supplies sold divided by the number of final prescriptions written. The benchmark for this is about 60%. This can be calculated on a daily or weekly basis for a pulse check. But should be calculated monthly to highlight missed opportunities at your practice. If you are below this benchmark, identify some ways you and your team can impact this number. Maybe try something new in your presentation of contact lenses and how you are influencing the sale than what you’re currently doing.