Did you recently lose an optometrist? Are you dragging your feet a bit finding a replacement?
It’s costing you more than you think.
It’s costing you more than you think.
When you lose an employee, regardless of the circumstances, your practice immediately shifts into crisis mode, whether it’s something that can be overtly felt or not. And the longer you spend without replacing that employee, the more your clinic will suffer in a number of ways, including the following:
Decreased revenue
Turnover is one of the biggest costs to your practice. Every single day that you don’t have an optometrist treating patients, money is slipping away from your practice.
Let’s do the math. If your optometrist treats
- 8 patients per day
And you bill
- $400 per patient
You’re looking at
- $3200 lost every single day that you don’t have that optometrist treating patients
If you multiply $3200 by a 5 day workweek, you’re looking at $16,000 every single week that you spend without hiring a replacement.
Staff morale
Financial implications aside, a practice suffers in more subtle ways during a turnover. When you’re short a staff member, it takes its toll on the rest of the team.
“Think about your staff as its own little family,” says Dr. Brett Kestenbaum. “Everyone has their own job to do, and when someone isn’t there, the job still needs to get done.”
When you’re down an employee, that job often falls on the rest of the team. Not only is this adding more work to your remaining employees’ plates, it often adds insult to the injury of the staff member leaving in the first place.
“Think about how you would feel if you lost your best friend at work,” adds Kestenbaum. “Would you wake up excited to go in?”
The cost of hiring
The costs of replacing a lost employee add up, too. From the time it takes to search for the right candidate, to the hours spent conducting interviews, time is definitely money. The time it takes to look for your new hire is taking someone away from another job.
The ramp up period
Unfortunately, very few new employees hit the ground running at 100%. Staff members need training in order to learn your practice’s unique systems, clientele, and other subtleties that can really add up.
Dr. Kestenbaum estimates that a new employee often takes 3-6 months to train appropriately so that they are performing as a fully productive staff member. For this reason, finding a qualified, eager candidate as quickly as possible is crucial in order to avoid unnecessary financial losses and a drop in workplace morale.
Dr. Brett Kestenbaum, co-founder of CovalentCareers, recommends using CovalentCareers to efficiently help you not only find a candidate, but find the right candidate for your practice's needs.
