Strategic Planning: A Simple 3 Step Plan for Eye Care Providers

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Strategic Planning A Simple 3 Step Plan for Eye
Care Providers Most owners and practice managers
arent at a loss for ideas to improve the
performance of their ophthalmology or optometry
practice. Setting goals isnt usually the
problembut achieving them is. Why? Many eye
care practices operate in the putting out fires
mode. Doctors, managers, and staff are so busy
taking care of patients and conducting the
day-to-day business of running the practice that
they dont take time for planning. They dont see
the trends affecting their futures. They may feel
that theyre saving time in the short termand
they are. But theyre also sabotaging themselves
in the long run. Thats where strategic planning
comes in. Strategic planning is a process that
produces a plan for how the practice will
accomplish its goals, says Maureen Waddle, MBA,
principal and senior consultant at BSM
Consulting. The end product is your action plana
description of the steps your practice will take
to obtain the specific goals or results you want
to achieve. A practice with a strategic plan
and a commitment to implementation is ahead of
over 90 of the competition, Waddle
emphasizes. The strategic planning process looks
different for every practice, but at its most
basic level it consists of three parts, Waddle
says. Youll need to prepare by gathering
information, meet with all stakeholders to hash
out the details, and finally, implement the
action plan and measure its success. Tip Not
sure where to start? To begin the strategic
planning process, start at the end. Have each
physician and key manager write down his or her
goals and objectives for the practice. Many
people are surprised to find how far apart they
are on their hopes and expectations for the
practice. Step 1 Prepare Youll need to spend
a significant amount of time gathering and
interpreting data and information. If that
doesnt sound fun, dont worrythe prep step
comprises the bulk of your efforts. You have to
think like a businessman (or woman), says
healthcare business consultant Michael J.
Parshall. This means knowing your product, your
customers, your market, your competitors, and
your risks and advantages. (Hint your practice
management software should be able to help you
analyze this data. Read more here.)
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• To start with, assess external market forces like
  industry news, changes in technology, payer
  trends, and government regulations, says Waddle.
  Next, look closer to home. What are your local
  demographics, growth rates, market share, major
  employers, and healthcare players?
• Finally, perform a situational analysis of your
  practice to shore up your subjective feelings
  with facts. You can do this through a combination
  of benchmarking, surveys, a competitive analysis,
  or a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities,
  Threats) analysis. The key is to employ an
  honest, data-supported evaluation that will guide
  you to identifying goals and actions, says
  Waddle. If youve chosen well, your ophthalmology
  practice management software will be an
  invaluable tool here.
• Step 2 Meet
• Once you have the clearest picture possible of
  where your practice stands, prepare the
  information for presentation to the owners and
  other stakeholders. Waddle recommends summarizing
  your findings by reporting only key databut
  having the details readily available. Whenever
  possible, use visuals like charts, graphs, and
  pictures to simplify your data points, she adds.
  Many people are visual learners and will tune out
  if bombarded with numbers, long paragraphs, or
  complicated spreadsheets.
• What will this meeting look like? For smaller
  practices, it might be one meeting. For others
  (especially larger practices with many
  stakeholders) it might be a weekend retreat.
  Either way, your goal is to provide good
  information to fuel an honest discussion, says
  Waddle. Youll review and vet opportunities, and
  agree on objectives, ownership, and
  communication.
• Most importantly, youll develop an action plan
  that details all the next steps for achieving
  your agreed-upon goals. An effective action plan
  includes a goal, a description of each task
  necessary to achieve it, the partner/manager in
  charge, the responsible parties, due dates, and a
  place for status updates and comments.
• For example, say a practice wanted to enhance
  their customer
• service levels. One goal might be to reduce
  patient wait times to less than 15 minutes. Their
  action plan would lay out steps like
• Mention online registration to every patient
  during their conformation call
• Review scheduling strategy for each physician
• Research and get estimate for mobile queue tool

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Step 3 Do The final step is to implement and
measure your action plan. Successful
implementation and follow up is what keeps
strategic planning from turning into just another
piece of warm and fuzzybut meaninglessbusiness
jargon. Its also the point when most practices
that do get beyond the planning stage fail. Here
are the most common reasons that well-laid plans
fall by the wayside, according to Waddle. Reason
1 Theres no ownership. Resolution Designate
an owner and responsible party for each item
(remember, its not always the same
person). Reason 2 Lack of physician
commitment. Resolution Engage physicians. Make
sure its their goals and plan. Reason 3 Lack
of communication. Resolution Use your action
plan and other status measures to provide
updates. Reason 4 The plan is
overwhelming. Resolution Limit your objective
to 3-5 at a time. Learn how to prioritize
opportunities. Reason 5 Strategy discussions
only occur on an annual basis. Resolution
Conduct informal strategy discussions in emails
and shorter meetings. Reason 6 Lack of
progress reports. Resolution Consider tying
incentives to achievements, and dont forget to
celebrate milestones.