Practice Advantage

Making Sense of Vendor Data and Decision Making with Dr. Steve Faith

Episode Summary

Every vendor you do business with wants you to do more business with them. They have a host of tools and data available to encourage you to purchase more. Multiply this across each vendor you work with and it can be overwhelming. Focusing on data driven decisions with vendors is key to practice success.

Episode Notes

In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Steve Faith, co-owner of Livermore Optometry Group in Livermore, CA to discuss data driven decision making with vendor partners, what a good partnership looks like, and leveraging the right data to drive practice success. 

Key Takeaways: 

  1. Best advice: "Independent practice is not that difficult. You only have to do two things. Make sure people like you and control your personal and professional overhead."
  2. At one point, LOG worked with over 40 different vendors. When looking only at their optical, they had 30-35 reps calling on them regularly. It cost the practice $100 an hour in staff costs to see reps, equalling more than $40,000 a year.
  3. LOG looked at various industries for insight on how to improve their vendor purchasing habits and their data to influence their  purchasing. EdgePro made a huge difference in tapping the data in the EHR system to make better purchasing decisions.
  4. Vendor data has not been all that impactful for Livermore as it's focused primarily on the vendor partner's product but does not take into account the practice as a whole. Bringing the practice level data into the conversation has a much greater impact.
  5. Great vendor partners are ones that know the practice individually and provide the support the practice needs. Great partners are willing to work with the needs of the practice based on the data the practice has.
  6. For Livermore, the VSP practice report has been valuable to providing even greater insight into their patient base and other practices in their area.

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