Defocus Media Podcast Network

Defocus Media Podcast Network


Optometry Podcast: Path to a Healthy Practice with Dr. Millicent Knight

June 22, 2020

This Podcast is in Partnership with Essilor

As many of us reopen our practices, we’re facing a new reality about how prepared our businesses were for unexpected challenges. How can we recover quickly and prepare for a stronger future? This podcast with guest, Dr. Millicent Knight, is focused on more than just a short term recovery – it’s time for doctors across the country to create a game plan for long term practice health. We’re sharing strategies for achieving your goals on this podcast.

Early in the episode, Dr. Glover reflects that he is wearing many hats right now in his optometric practice, performing all of his own workups and helping out in optical even more than usual as the office slowly brings staff back on board. Dr. Knight shares that like many working women and mothers, her new reality is a delicate balance of her responsibilities as the Senior Vice President of Customer Development at Essilor as well as serving as a homeschool teacher and a short-order cook with the impact of COVID-19. 

While the stress of these new responsibilities can be difficult, Dr. Knight encourages doctors to embrace possibilities and a time to reflect on what their practice is bringing to both their personal life and their community. “Out of this daunting situation is the opportunity to do better and to be better. It’s almost a reset opportunity.” COVID-19 gives doctors the chance to rethink their practice and ask the tough question: are they meeting their mission in serving patients in their community? Are they leveraging the opportunities to make their practice successful both clinically and financially? 

Along with her team at Essilor, Dr. Knight has authored the Healthy Practice Guidelines, available at essilorpro.com/COVID-19. These guidelines include five tips to re-energizing your practice:

Tip #1: Choosing Your Partners

“You can be the best clinician in the world, but if your office is closed because it’s not financially sound, it’s a disservice to everyone – you, your staff and your entire community,” Dr. Knight explains. Finding a personal banker, a lawyer, an HR specialist, and expert partners to work with you on the parts of your business that are not your forte is critical to long-term success and reduced stress. “During a crisis, it’s not the time to be looking for a relationship with a bank. This is not the time for transactional relationships. It’s the time for true partnerships.” 

Before entering industry, Dr. Knight owned a private practice for 20 years in Evanston, Illinois. She shares that in 2008 she took a hard look at her business and she decided to expand her office footprint and rethink many of her patient care services, including expanding her medical eyecare and prescribing optical solutions from the exam chair. “You’re only doing half the job if you don’t recommend an optical solution to address their ocular strain and fatigue.” She enjoyed partnering with Vision Source at that time to have access to a community of people that were business minded right at her finger tips. The relationship helped examine metrics and learn to understand parts of her business that were working and those that weren’t, as well as helping with making decisions on bringing in new technology to her practice. 

She encourages doctors to shore up their knowledge base with courses available through CE vendors.