Most opticians could manage their time — and your patients — far more effectively than they do. Dispensing expert Leona Meditz recommends that you take the following steps to help your optician manage his time more effectively.

• Plan a "refraction day."
Choose one day each week to schedule exams that include refractions. Instruct the optician to make appointments for adjustments and eyeglass deliveries on other days of the week, so that he can devote his attention to fitting this day's patients. Optical calls should also be returned at another time.
• Schedule new eyewear deliveries.
When your optician calls a patient to say that his glasses are ready, he should make a dispensing appointment. The appointment should allow about 20 minutes for checking lens and frame alignment, and instructing the patient on the care and maintenance of his new eyewear.
• Prearrange frame adjustments
. When dispensing is complete, your optician should schedule the first of a series of frame adjustments. Most frames should be adjusted every 3 months.
• Schedule "emergency" repairs
. If a patient comes in with an "emergency" during a refraction day, have your optician ask him to leave the glasses for repair, or schedule an adjustment for the next available "adjusting" day. If a repair MUST be done, the patient should be charged a fee.
• Check on lab work ahead of time
. Before closing, your optician should tell the lab to fax a report of all the work that's being shipped at the end of that day. Also, have your optician use file dividers numbered from 1 to 31 to file lab orders by the day the orders are due.
Each morning, have your optician pull all the orders that are late, plus all orders due the following day. These should be cross-checked against the fax to find out what won't be arriving that day. Because labs open early, while most optical shops don't open until after 9:00 AM, your optician can reach labs before they get busy and you start to see patients. He should only check on work that's due, but isn't being shipped.
If glasses due the following day aren't going to ship today, he should call the patient immediately to explain the delay. Patients are so impressed when someone takes the time to call the day before the glasses are due that they rarely complain.