By Carisa Dunphy, ABOC
Queue the Rocky music — it is time for the Optician Olympics: the end of year rush! I don’t know about you, but I love the end of year rush — it’s the culmination of all the hard work you’ve put in all year and the ultimate test of your skills — on fast forward. Having absolutely no spare time to do anything, second nature kicks in out of necessity as the clinic’s hours are extended and more appointment slots are made available. You set your eye on the prize: closing time on December 31. But wait… January 1 brings a mad dash to process all the new year orders you held, and just about the time you complete processing those orders, the previous year’s orders are back from the lab, need to be checked in, and the dispensing begins.
One of my most impactful year-end memories was around late October when our office had just gotten a new frame line — it was an inaugural optical collection for the designer, and the opticians had not yet seen them. It happened that one frame in the collection was perfectly trending on style for that season AND managed care plans reimbursement allowed for no remaining out of pocket costs for the patient — the trifecta. Opticians wanted to sell it and many patients wanted it for more than one reason. In the last two weeks of the year, when we got insanely busy, everybody wanted that one frame. We must have sold that frame 20 times per day, among five opticians — no joke. Measure, dot, write down, clean lenses, and return frame to the board. Most of the time when you went to get that frame, someone else had it. We ended up having it on-hand in all colors, just so we had enough of them for all Opticians to measure patients.
Another fond end-of-year memory is ‘find-a-tray’. Even after combining all patient orders, and sometimes grouping family orders to one tray, we still ran out of trays. We used anything we found that could be used as a tray — small boxes, desk organizers, you name it. All these mis-matched items don’t make for neat stacks and were used only as a last resort. Throughout the years, we acquired new trays to better accommodate the busy season, but it often resulted in empty stacks for most of the year and STILL running out when they were most needed. Cheers to growth!
Where I am located, a majority of patients have January 1 plan renewals. I took pride in making sure every patient knew when their plan renewed — if it was November or December and their plan renewed in January, I asked if while they were here, they wanted to look for a second pair to process in January. Many patients opted to find a second pair that day so they didn’t have to come back again to look or get measured and they could get the additional pair they really wanted. I always made sure to let patients know that this would use their whole benefit for the next calendar year and advised that the second order would not be processed until their next-year benefits were verified.
As you close out your year — Optician Auld Lang Syne — make it your best one yet!
