Pricing in Optometry

When it comes to Optometry and healthcare in general, not all marketing components of the known concept of marketing apply comfortably. The marketing concept and process have to be modified to be applied to the environment of healthcare. Pricing is one of the components that Optometrists have limited ability to use as a marketing tool. Pricing is dependent on the amount third-party payers are willing to pay for a specific procedure. Therefore marketing in healthcare requires marketers to adapt marketing knowledge and expertise to the unique aspects of the healthcare industry.
Unlike other industries, the product to be marketed in healthcare takes the form of services and is generally hard to describe and hard to specify.
The same is with many products in Optometry. The product can be a procedure or a contract with groups, networks, or health care organizations. The product can be an idea, that the organization promotes. An idea is an intangible product that portrays a perception to the customer. The practice image is an example of an idea that can be conveyed using marketing tools. Quality care is another idea that the practice would want to promote and communicate through marketing. The purpose is to establish a familiarity and a mindset that leads the patient to chose your practice without having a second guess.
Some practitioners rely heavily on the idea of practice image, whereas new opportunities reside in lending attention to promoting and advertising services. Being able to provide services to patients is an ongoing process. This brings to mind the concept of value-adding and the concept of solution providing.
A value-adding practice provides products that transform the patient into more perfect. For example, the patient imperfect vision has been perfected when we equipped him with new eyeglasses. It is a one-shot tangible product with a clear transfer of property that added value to the patient.
However, a solution provider practice markets and promotes ongoing services, durable medical offers, and solutions that the patient evaluates them differently than tangible products. Those services are assessed in subjective terms and not objective terms. Services differ from products because they reflect the nuances that reflect the provider who provided them, they are inseparable from the provider, and once provided they have no residual value and don’t involve a transfer of tangible property from the provider to the patient.
If you can understand the importance of solution providing you will understand that pricing is not solely dependent on tangible charges (that include fees, charges, deductibles, copays, or other out-of-pocket costs) but rather on intangible costs and what the patient is willing to exchange (that include not having to wait, discomfort, embarrassment, frustration, and other emotional costs of dealing with plans and providers).