Probably one of the most difficult decisions I've made came last year when I chose to step away from seeing patients and fully commit to Emergent. I had already sold my practice and was down to patient care just one day a week. Our work in practice management consulting for vision therapy had become both incredibly fulfilling and increasingly demanding. Plus, I loved collaborating with my brother, Dennis, on developing new VT equipment and bringing it to the world (teaser… we’ve got some exciting products on the way, so stay tuned!).
We began our practice management consulting several years ago. Often, while selling our vision therapy kits, we’d find ourselves discussing practice management with customers. My undergraduate degree was in Business Management and I had found some good success building 3 vision therapy clinics. Our CFO, Tyler Ives, had spent most of his career in financial consulting within the tech industry, so it wasn’t a huge leap to think we could provide consulting services that would benefit VT clinics. But the truth was—I didn’t want to do it. I was having too much fun working directly with patients and building my own clinics. On top of that, with five children, the thought of frequent travel and being away from them was a significant hurdle.
Looking back, I’m still not sure how Dennis and Tyler convinced me to start consulting. But once I did, the experience was incredibly rewarding. I enjoyed working with doctors who were struggling with various aspects of their practice, and it was clear how those challenges were affecting their personal lives as well. By helping them succeed, I ensured that running a vision therapy clinic became a source of fulfillment rather than a burden. As their practices grew, I realized I was helping exponentially more people access the life-changing benefits of vision therapy. Plus, the flexible consulting schedule allowed me to spend more time with my family, and the travel wasn’t as bad as I’d feared.
Do I miss patient care? Absolutely. There’s nothing quite like hearing about a child’s newfound success in school, watching a patient with strabismus experience depth perception for the first time, or seeing how someone recovering from traumatic brain injury has gotten their life back. But on the flip side, I now have the opportunity to multiply these success stories by helping doctors experience these more and more every day.
If you are interested in practice management consulting for your clinic, schedule a free consult with Dr. Winters here.
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