Before you hire your next CPA, ask these questions
The Optometry Success Podcast
The wrong CPA may file your tax return perfectly—and still be the wrong CPA for your practice. This week on The Optometry Success Podcast, we’re answering a listener question from a new 50% practice owner whose longtime CPA may soon be retiring: What should I be looking for when interviewing a new CPA, and what questions should I ask? Before you start interviewing firms, though, there’s an important distinction to make: What do you actually expect your CPA to do? Do you need someone to prepare tax returns and make sure everything is filed correctly? Do you expect...
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So you want to get rid of your front desk? Start here.
The Optometry Success Podcast
Getting rid of your front desk sounds great in theory—but what does it actually look like on Monday morning? In a recent episode of The Optometry Success Podcast, “Why do you still have a front desk?”, we challenged one of those assumptions in optometry that often goes unquestioned simply because “that’s the way we’ve always done it.” That conversation generated a listener question asking us to go one step further: How do you actually make this work? So that’s exactly what we’re doing in this episode. Chad walks through the self-check-in system he built...
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How to Manipulate Yourself into Financial Happiness as a Practice Owner—and What It’s Really Costing You
The Optometry Success Podcast
As a practice owner, it’s possible to manipulate your financials in ways that make the business appear healthier than it really is, often without realizing you’re doing it. On this episode, my co-host, Dr. Chad Fleming, and I discuss how decisions like paying yourself an artificially low salary or charging the practice below-market rent can inflate your reported profitability and create a false sense of financial happiness. We also discuss why practice owners need to normalize their financials, use consistent definitions when talking about profit margins, and understand the difference...
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Why do you still have a front desk?
The Optometry Success Podcast
In this episode of The Optometry Success Podcast, we challenge practice owners to reconsider whether they still need a traditional front desk. Chad shares how his practices use self-service check-in kiosks to address staffing challenges, reclaim office space and redirect payroll toward higher-impact roles. We also discuss how front-desk responsibilities can be reassigned or automated without sacrificing the patient experience. We’re not suggesting every practice eliminate its front desk. Instead, we want owners to question long-standing assumptions and consider whether a kiosk could solve...
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Are You Overpaying for IT? The Hidden Technology Costs Draining Practice Profit
The Optometry Success Podcast
What if one of the biggest opportunities to improve your practice’s profitability isn’t seeing more patients—but simply questioning the technology bills you’ve accepted as “just the cost of doing business”? In this episode of The Optometry Success Podcast, Adam and Chad dive into one of the most overlooked expense categories on an optometric practice’s P&L: IT and technology. From managed IT retainers to software subscriptions, networking fees, equipment warranties, and EMR integrations, they explore why so many practice owners assume these costs are fixed—and why that...
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How to Audit Your Optical Lab Costs and Protect Your Profitability
The Optometry Success Podcast
In this episode, Chad and I build on our previous conversation about lab rebates by focusing on the next step: auditing the true cost of the optical jobs for which your practice pays the bill. We explain why comparing one discounted lens or rebate isn’t enough and how analyzing the complete cost of your most frequently used lens-and-AR combinations can reveal what you’re actually paying. We also discuss how labs use loss leaders, when working with multiple labs may make financial sense, and why a buying group’s preferred lab relationship doesn’t automatically guarantee your...
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Are Lab Rebates Actually Saving Your Optometry Practice Money?
The Optometry Success Podcast
In this episode, Chad and I continue our conversation about whether optometry practices should finish jobs in-house or send them to a lab. This time, we focus on the role managed vision care plans play in that decision, including state opt-out rules, required labs, reimbursements, and rebates. We break lab analysis into two distinct lanes: when the managed vision care plan pays the lab bill and when the practice pays it directly. We also discuss why an attractive rebate does not always equal greater profitability and how I should evaluate the total net cost, product quality, turnaround...
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Should you finish in house or send your jobs to a lab?
The Optometry Success Podcast
Should your practice finish jobs in-house, or send them out to a lab? In this episode of The Optometry Success Podcast, we dig into a deceptively simple question that can have a major impact on profitability, efficiency, patient experience, and owner stress. We talk through the decision matrix behind in-house finishing, including the obvious costs — lenses, equipment, and staffing — as well as the softer costs that are easy to overlook: square footage, utilities, training, quality control, staff turnover, and the operational risk of relying on one or two key people to keep the...
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Responsible Debt: How to Use Leverage Without Trapping Your Practice
The Optometry Success Podcast
In this episode, we talk through how optometric practice owners can think about debt more responsibly and avoid letting borrowed money quietly eat away at practice cash flow. Adam explains why a healthy P&L does not always mean there is money available in the bank, and why the statement of cash flow often reveals how much of a practice’s earnings are being consumed by financing activities. We discuss how debt can be used to accelerate growth, but also how it can create pressure when the practice takes on more than its earnings can reasonably support. We also explore how to...
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Buying Charts and Cold Starts
The Optometry Success Podcast
In this episode, we respond to a listener question from a doctor preparing to open a cold start practice. The listener asks whether there is value in buying patient charts from a nearby retiring doctor, especially if doing so could help the doctor retire sooner and create an opportunity to reach out to those patients. Adam and Chad discuss why charts alone usually have very little value unless there is a clear transition strategy behind them. They talk through what a collaborative handoff could look like, including the retiring doctor actively introducing patients, emphasizing...
info_outlineIn this episode, we kick off a broader series on how optometry practice owners can make more intentional, profitable decisions in the optical. Adam and Chad start with cost of goods, discussing why “average” benchmarks should not automatically be accepted as the goal and why even small percentage-point improvements can have a meaningful impact on the bottom line.
They also talk through the difference between choosing what you personally like and choosing what is best for the business, especially when it comes to frames, ophthalmic lenses, vendor relationships, lab strategy, and contact lens rebates. This conversation sets the stage for future episodes on frame choices, lens strategy, private label, lab decisions, and helping patients understand their options between managed vision care and out-of-pocket choices.
Have a question for us to address in a future episode? Submit it here!
Resources:
Learn more about Partners in Profit
Download the Practice Owner's Financial Toolkit
20/20 Money Ultimate Financial Success Masterclass
OD Mastermind Interest Form
Check out Adam's new book: How to Buy an Optometry Practice
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