It’s the end of the month, and you know you need to sit down and complete your accounts payable. That sense of dread and frustration, at the time it takes, when you could be seeing patients, can be overwhelming.
Having worked at the practice level for over 16 years, this was the major obstacle to overcome each month. Battling with over 60 vendors, ensuring payment dates weren’t missed, duplicate payments weren’t made, and credits were not overlooked, was a stress myself and my teams just didn’t need. And everyone agreed, we’d rather spend our time with our patients, but it seemed a necessary evil at the time.
I’m happy to say these days, this stress can disappear. Consolidated billing through our group simplifies the whole process:
- Less manual data entry and faster month-end close
- Decrease in errors and time spent tracking down items
- Alignment of vendor payments under one schedule with one batch payment
- Order and billing disputes are easier to track and resolve
It’s worth a reminder too that consolidated billing ties into better pricing and rebates for our members that benefit your patients:
- Group purchasing power
- Volume based vendor discounts
More importantly, from an everyday operational perspective, this improves staff workload and reduces burnout. I’d estimate that practices spend anywhere from four to ten hours per month working on vendor accounts like this when billing is not consolidated. No matter the size of your practice, every hour spent in front of patients makes a meaningful difference. I’ve often wondered over the years what this looks like…
Let’s work it out:
If you pay a staff member $20 per hour and they spend four hours per month on your accounts payable, that equals $80 (plus benefits) in operational cost. Now, this may not seem significant, but it’s a business cost with no sales attached to it.
If you can turn two of these hours into patient-facing time where sales are made, you not only save money, you make it.
Two hours can generate two more patient sales. If your average sale per patient for frame and lenses is $700, that’s $1400 per month in sales. If you aren’t consolidating your billing, you could be missing out on $16,800 per year in sales!
With an EBITDA of 20%, that’s an additional $3,360 in profit—simply from taking advantage of consolidated billing as a member benefit.
It’s easy to push back and say, “Yes, but my admin staff aren’t trained to sell or dispense.” I have three responses for you:
- They may not need to be. They can support your dispensing team in other ways that allow them to make more sales. For example, if your dispensers or opticians are conducting pre-tests, your admin staff can be easily trained to take on this task—freeing up your opticians to focus on making sales and serving your patients.
- We have training available on our learning management system (LMS) through your member sign-in that will help train your team. From front desk support to dispensing guides, including safety and sunglasses, there are resources to support every role. And guess what… we’ve written you a Blueprint document that gives you step-by-step support on staff training.
- If your admin staff aren’t enthusiastic about retraining, they can use the saved hours to focus on patient recalls; whether for product purchases, sight testing, or eye exams. This funnel is crucial for the future growth of your business.
In conclusion, eliminating vendor fragmentation and chaos supports the scalability of your practice. It’s a foundational support mechanism for sustainable growth that will keep your admin flat even when your volume grows. After all, it is 2026. We want to support you to work smarter, not harder by allowing you and your teams to spend as much time as possible where it counts—with your patients.
Lisa Glithero
Senior Manager Growth Programs
Eye Care Edge
