Tag Archives: Optometry

Housing Market Crash and Rising Medical Costs, Is There A Connection?

As millions of American homeowners know, the housing market crash was fueled by inflated home values and bank loans that were high above the equity or actual value of “underwater” homes. According to Trisha Lotzer, JD., health-care attorney and CEO of Physis, Inc., a similar threat for banks, borrowers and owners of many of the nation’s medical, dental, optometry and veterinary practices must be averted.

Like residential real estate, medical practices may be marketed and sold by brokers. Brokers in the business of selling medical practices commonly charge 7-12% commission. The commission alone can add $80,000 to $2,000,000 to the purchase price, depending on the size of the facility–and drive up the bank note accordingly.

Like real estate agents, the job of the practice broker is to get the seller the highest selling price possible. Unlike real estate agents, however, brokers are often the only ones who value the practices they have for sale–giving them a built in incentive to inflate the value of practices and increase their commission. Ross Landreth, MBA, explains that the problem occurs when a practice is arbitrarily valued, purchased and financed at $1,500,000, but only has an actual fair market value (per USPAP approved valuation standards) of $850,000. This could mean that the practice does not cash-flow at $1,500,00 and that the new purchasers would have to raise the price of services in order to maintain profitability and pay back the bank note. This increase in the cost of health care does not increase the earnings of the practice owners or physicians but is passed along to patients and insurance providers.

Via EPR Network
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GlassesUSA Offers Customers Generous Discount On Prescription Glasses During Sale

GlassesUSA is keeping prescription eyeglasses affordable. Staying in line with their philosophy of ensuring eyeglasses are an affordable necessity and not an expensive luxury, GlassesUSA recently launched a new marketing campaign for their customers. The newest campaign is aimed at selling a selected portion of their most popular, fashionable eyeglass frames at a discount to their customers.

Unlike many retailers who keep their sales under wraps and hidden in the dark corners of their websites with special landing pages in hopes that customers will not use the discount, GlassesUSA launched their “Autumn Sale 2009” campaign first via email to customers who signed up for their seasonal newsletter. After the successful email campaign was launched, GlassesUSA launched the promotion on their website – inviting customers to take 10% off any of the selected eyeglasses.

The final steps in the promotional campaign launch was reaching out to bloggers and affiliates in order to get the word out about the 10% discount. The campaign was well-received among bloggers and those running coupon and discount sites.

GlassesUSA, a company that endured many changes recently including moving their shipping outfit to St. Joseph, Michigan, is an international cooperative group with offices in New Jersey as well as Tel Aviv, Israel. The company believes that vision care should be within arms reach and that high-quality eyeglasses should not cost a fortune. In conjunction with their business philosophy, GlassesUSA established efforts for their customers to not only recycle broken glasses but to donate old and used eyeglasses in order to ensure that those around the globe who cannot afford eyeglasses will receive them free of cost.

Since launching as a company, GlassesUSA transformed into an organization committed to philanthropy as well as consumer education. Their customers have a blog available to find the best ways to keep themselves informed on anything new in the vision world. GlassesUSA also reaches out to its customers with creative and innovative ways to save money – such as their Autumn Sale 2009.

Via EPR Network
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