There are many different ways to practice eye care. You can be in a private group setting with multiple partners, collaborate with an optician, practice in a hospital or the military, work in a corporate practice or be a solo home-town doc—the choice is yours. Yet, the ownership of all of these types of practices is the same. That is, they are all owned by the patients who visit them.

Who is in Charge?
You may have heard the saying, “Your patients are the ones who sign your paycheck.” While this is not the case in the literal sense, your patients’ needs and opinions should be the driving forces in your practice, regardless of the setting. After all, where would you be without them? As owners, shouldn’t they have a say in how your practice runs, how it looks, when it’s open and what products you offer?

What Your Patients Are Telling You
On some level, you already listen to what your patients want. For example, you’re probably not open between 1:00a.m. and 6:00a.m. because patients have “told” you that they won’t come during those hours.

Your patients have probably also “told” you that they won’t tolerate a rude or uncaring staff. (The word “told” is in quotes because most patients won’t verbalize their lack of desire for insomniac office hours, and rude staff members are simply dealt with by patients never returning to the practice.)

Likewise, have your patient-owners “told” you what lenses they’d like you to offer? It’s implied that patients don’t expect an offering of a bologna and cheese sandwich, nor do they expect you to carry greeting cards. Yet, they probably have not specifically told you what they do expect. In the retail field, this concept is referred to as managing your mix—selling certain products to attract or retain certain customers.

For instance, Ralph Lauren attracts a different customer base than Hollister. Are you managing your product mix to attract the patients you want and to keep your owners happy? Your patients probably don’t expect you to be offering older technology lenses like PMMA or CAB—in fact, most of us don’t. But, few of us actually specify why we offer the lenses we do, and even fewer make it a point to offer specifically what our patient-owners want.

Do the Research
What do our patients want? That’s probably the easiest market research exercise of all to undertake. There are two great sources that can help answer that question. The best source is your current patient base; you’ll find out exactly what you need to know by simply asking them.

Here’s how you can go about this task: First, survey patients and ask them questions about their proclivity for things such as continuous wear, daily disposable lenses, orthokeratology, and the like, and you might find that their desires aren’t in sync with your offerings. They are the owners of your practice; carefully examine their responses and adjust your product mix accordingly.

The second sources for research are sales reps. Yes, a rep will promote their own products, but if you look beyond that promotion for data that supports categories of products and not just the products themselves, you’ll find a wealth of pertinent information.

The Macro Philosophy
This perception of managing your mix for your practice owners is a macro view. It’s like looking at a country’s culture, not the individuals who make it up. Therefore, if you find from this macro view that patients would prefer the convenience of daily disposable lenses, it doesn’t mean you need to fit every patient with them. But, it does mean that every patient should know that you do indeed offer them to all clinically appropriate candidates.

Give the people what they want. It’s a basic tenet of marketing. And in your case, it only makes sense to ensure that your ophthalmic products and services align with the interests of your patients—the owners of your practice.