Step 7. Staff buy in

For any new scheme to work well and ensure all opportunities are maximised, the whole practice team should be behind it. They should fully understand the reasons for doing it, how it works and all the potential patient benefits. Involving your team at an early stage should ensure that they will take a greater degree of ownership and give their commitment to ensure success. It is inevitable that some may resist change. This will be minimised when the reasons for and background to your scheme are explained. An ideal way to go about this is through organising a team meeting to explain it.

During a team meeting to discuss your scheme, it may be helpful to start by showing the presentations by Gary Gerber and Potters Bar Eye Care Centre (See 'Resources' on the right). These will help your team to understand that change is possible and beneficial when managed well in optical practice, and learn from a real practice’s experience implementing their fee-based scheme for contact lenses.

Meeting preparation

Preparing for your meeting will help you to consolidate and organise your thoughts and anticipate any objections that could be encountered. Put together a logical, structured meeting programme, by including:

During the meeting encourage all views and feelings to be aired. Specific issues and anticipated concerns should be noted. Do not feel you have to find answers to all of them at this meeting, although if any other team members have another view that should be aired too. A second meeting 2 weeks later may be helpful to practice handling any anticipated patient reservations. Another meeting just prior to launch is valuable to ensure everyone is up to speed and ready to start discussing your new scheme.

Between meetings it will be helpful to keep the team up-to-date with how the preparation for the scheme is going. This should keep their enthusiasm building through to the launch date... and beyond.

The meeting just prior to starting can be considered a launch meeting where hopefully all materials required will be available. Specific scenarios can be discussed and appropriate ways to handle them agreed. These scenarios could include how to handle a new contact lens patient, an existing contact lens patient or an infrequent contact lens wearer. Having the team role play the scenario may help find the right words to use in each case.

Other scenarios, if launching a scheme for spectacle wearers, could include: private patient, patient entitled to NHS funded eye examination, patient with vouchers for eyewear. The next step in the Professional Fees Journey Plan will provide suggested ways to handle these scenarios based on the experience of other practices.

Your CIBA VISION Business Development Manager may be able to provide some additional support with arranging and running staff meetings, so get in touch to find out more.

Communication materials

It is important to support the launch of a new pricing structure with a suitable brochure that will explain the main benefits. This will be a benefit to both patients and practice staff when handling enquiries. A practice brochure template is available that can be modified to suit your requirements. Feel free to modify this brochure in any way to suit your practice including logos, colours, numbers or text.

A brochure for your patients explaining contact lens care and payment plan options is available to download.

There are two versions - the first PDF version is for you to preview. Use this to decide what changes you need to make.

The second Quark version is for you to download and pass on to your agency or printers. Alternatively you can direct your agency to this page. You will not be able to open the Quark file unless you have specific software.

Any supporting brochure should describe your scheme and why it has been introduced, outlining the main benefits. All specific benefits can be detailed and presented clearly as bullet points. Many practices find that it is usually more effective to prioritise the savings that members of the scheme will receive when listing benefits. For example, low cost contact lenses & solutions, 20% off all spectacles, etc. before describing the clinical benefits, such as eye examination every two years, comprehensive aftercare. This will help patients to assess the value for money they will be getting.

Your brochure should include a section that allows an individual patient’s fees and costs to be tailored to suit them, so they can see exactly how much they will be paying every month for each element of the care and products they will receive.

The leaflet template also includes a list of the main contact lens types. This will help to reinforce the message that your practice is able to fit and supply a wide range of contact lenses to suit the individual needs of your patients.

For a contact lens scheme, it may be helpful to create a new price list. This should list all the main contact lenses available with the new prices alongside, as determined by using the Professional Fee Template. Some practices have found it useful to include the ‘old’ or non-scheme prices alongside. This will be a useful comparison to show existing wearers how much less they will pay. Of course, there will be those who do not wish to pay by Direct Debit or a year’s aftercare in advance and therefore may not be entitled to the new lower prices or other benefits of the scheme. Some practices charge these people the same for their lenses as they used to, as well as an additional amount for each aftercare appointment, eye examination, etc.

Staff incentive schemes

If you want to get your scheme off to a flying start and ensure all staff are behind it from day one, you may find it helpful to offer some form of incentive scheme. This can encourage the team to introduce patients to the scheme before they get to the consulting room and reduce the time the optometrist spends explaining the scheme to every patient they see. This can make a great difference to the number of patients signed up, especially when launching a scheme for spectacle wearers.

Some practices have offered bottles of wine, others Marks & Spencer vouchers, just for the first three or six month launch period. By the end of this period all staff should be quite confident handling enquiries, objections and introducing your scheme to anyone visiting the practice.