A private service squeezed into a sight test diary
Your practice offers a dry eye clinic: an extended assessment, perhaps in-practice treatments, a recommended home routine and products such as drops or lid care items sold from the practice. The optometrist sets a review date. It is a valuable service and patients who use it often become loyal.
But it runs on a diary built for sight tests. Assessment appointments do not fit the standard slot. Treatment courses are booked one session at a time. Review dates are written in the notes but not booked. Product reorders depend on the patient remembering to call.
Why the clinic is hard to run
- Appointment types and lengths do not fit the sight test template.
- Treatment courses and reviews are not scheduled as a series.
- Product reorders are left to the patient.
- Payments for assessments, treatments and products are recorded in different ways.
- There is no list of patients due a review or running low on products.
What that costs
| Gap | Effect |
|---|---|
| Reviews not booked | Patients not seen when the optometrist intended |
| Treatment courses booked ad hoc | Gaps between sessions and diary clashes |
| Products not reordered | Patients buy elsewhere or stop the routine |
| Payments recorded inconsistently | Hard to see what the clinic earns |
| No clinic overview | The service's value is unclear to the owner |
A private clinical service depends on patients experiencing it as organised and personal. When follow-up is left to chance, the service looks less professional than the care inside the room.
How we build the clinic layer
- Dry eye appointment types are set up with the right lengths and resources in your practice diary, including any equipment that must be free.
- When the optometrist recommends a course of treatment sessions or a review, the series is booked or pencilled in before the patient leaves.
- Patients receive reminders for each session and review, with an easy way to rearrange.
- Products the optometrist recommends are recorded against the patient, and a reorder reminder goes out when a supply is likely to run low, based on the quantity sold, with an option to order and collect or have it posted.
- Assessments, treatments and products are recorded consistently for payment, including any clinic packages you offer.
- A clinic list shows patients due a review, overdue, or due a product reorder.
- A monthly view shows appointments, treatments and product sales for the clinic.
We do not advise on dry eye assessment, treatment or products. The optometrist makes every clinical decision; we organise the appointments, reminders and payments around it.
What the clinic becomes
Patients leave with their next appointments booked and receive reminders at the right time. Product reorders are prompted rather than forgotten. Staff can see the whole clinic on one list. And the owner can see what the service brings in, which helps when deciding whether to expand it.
The optometrists benefit directly. Instead of trying to remember which patients were due back this month, they open a clinic list and see who is booked, who is overdue and who has not reordered their home routine products. The clinical work stays theirs; the chasing does not.
Is your dry eye clinic here?
- Dry eye appointments are squeezed into sight test slots.
- Reviews are noted but not booked.
- Patients have to remember to reorder products.
- Payments for the clinic are recorded inconsistently.
- You cannot easily see what the clinic earns.