20/20 Money Episode # 37 – Buying and Growing a Successful Rural Optometry Practice: The Story of Dr. Matt Mitchell, OD

Welcome back to another episode of 20/20 Money. My guest on today’s show is Dr. Matt Mitchell. Dr. Mitchell owns Bluffton Family Eye Care, a private practice located in…you guessed it…Bluffton, IN. What’s unique about Matt, though, is that his practice is located in what many would consider to be a “rural” practice setting, as the population of his entire county is less than 30,000 people and is dominated by agribusiness.

In this conversation, Matt starts out by talking about the current make-up of his practice, including their schedule, number of providers, and total FTE hours worked in the practice.

Matt and I then talk about the journey he’s been on since graduating optometry school. He talks about how he worked a couple of “big box jobs” until he was in a position professionally and personally to buy the practice and how he navigated the purchasing process with the selling doctor (and how he found the doctor in the first place).

In this episode, you’ll learn how they split up the hours between three doctors, how they’ve increased patient compliance in bringing in pt hx forms, how he calculates per exam revenue per pt, how he used website traffic to understand his patient experience process, and why his net income is significantly higher than the national average and what that means for his practice. You’ll also learn how he’s used a “profit-first” approach to run a very lean practice, and how Dave Ramsey’s TMM (Total Money Makeover) has changed his personal and professional life.

And be sure to stick around to the end, where he shares an awesome story about how the power of saving and paying cash can change one’s perspective on whether or not they actually “need” fill-in-the-blank shiny object/toy/piece of equipment, etc.

As a reminder, you can get all the information discussed in today’s conversation by visiting our website at integratedpwm.com and clicking on the Learning Center. While on our website, you can also set up a 15min pre-discovery conversation to learn a little bit more about what it means to work with our firm. You can also check out our new, on-demand webinar titled “Planning Considerations for the OD Business Owner” or any number of ebooks that we’ve written.

And with that introduction, I hope you enjoy my conversation with Dr. Matt Mitchell.

Links and Resources

Bluffton Family Eye Care

Four Hour Work Week

Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover

Profit First by Mike Michalowicz