What prompted your decision to earn a law degree?
First and foremost, I have always said—only half-jokingly—that I could be a professional student. I love learning new things. The specific reason I decided to earn my JD was that there was a year when our practice went through a Department of Health and Human Services audit for HIPAA compliance, and an audit by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and a wage and hour audit by the Department of Labor, in addition to the normal insurance audits. It really scared me because I kept thinking, “What are we missing?” At the end of the day, there are a lot of things that you just may not know. Luckily, we came out of those audits fine, but the sense of fear that I felt about what we might be missing due to lack of knowledge stayed with me. I wanted to educate myself about the legal aspects of running a medical optometric practice. The arena that optometrists play in is different from that of other medical professionals because we have not only medical insurance and billing, but also vision and retail components.
What are the most important things that optometrists can do to protect themselves against liability claims?
Education and communication. You have to educate both yourself and your staff on the processes that need to be in place in your practice and for patients’ follow-up care. The staff are the ones who will be involved in following through on those processes, so communication and education are of utmost importance. From a regulatory standpoint, make sure you stay up to date with changes in coding and billing. If you’ve hired someone to do billing for your practice, don’t assume that individual is staying up to date and doing everything correctly. At the end of the day it is your responsibility as the practice owner.
What drives your entrepreneurial spirit?
I like doing different things. My husband and I do a lot in real estate; we’ve owned half of a real estate company for more than 20 years. I also like being busy and having different channels to put my efforts into. If one area of work is frustrating me, I like having another job or project to focus on. If I like something, I don’t consider it work. I’ve been able to take my interests and likes and make a career out of them.
Why did you decide to start the Visual Performance Center?
I started the center to focus on research studies in optometry. Before I became an OD and after I had completed my master’s in public health, I considered getting a doctorate in epidemiology, but I decided against that because I thought I would miss the human interaction that would come with a patient-facing career. After becoming a practice-owning optometrist, I decided to incorporate research into my practice. A few years into my career, I was able to get my feet wet by doing postmarket studies with a few companies. I’ve been doing those for more than 10 years now, and, the more you do, the more comfortable the companies are with giving you products that are not FDA-approved (new contact lenses, new solutions, etc). Over the years, we’ve done dry eye studies, numerous contact lens studies, solution studies, visual performance studies, and myopia control studies. I like research in general and I like knowing what’s coming down the pipeline. An additional benefit is that patients can see that you do research and might infer that your practice is cutting-edge because of that fact. But the overarching reason behind everything I do is that I just like to learn. I started the Visual Performance Center because it allows me to learn new things with each study we do.
What practice management pearls do you have for optometrists looking to get more involved in managing their practices?
The key to managing your practice is knowing how to do everyone’s job. This allows you to be able to spot-check a problem and monitor efficiencies. Office managers can do this, but there is staff turnover, and miscommunications and errors can happen during transitions. At the end of the day, it is your practice, and everything that happens within it is your responsibility.
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