Episode 136: Creating a More Holistic Integrated Healthcare Patient Experience with Dr. Neda Gioia

Evon: [00:00:00] Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Optometry Money Podcast, where we’re helping ODs all over the country make better and better decisions around their money, their careers, and their practices. I am your host, Evon Mendrin, Certified Financial Planner practitioner, and owner of Optometry Wealth Advisors, an independent financial planning firm just for optometrists nationwide.

And thank you so much for listening. Really appreciate your time and your attention today and onto today’s episode I am excited to welcome to the podcast Dr. Neda Gioia, owner of Integrative Vision. And what’s fascinating about Dr. Gioia is her integrative healthcare patient care model that she has adopted onto her Optometry practice looking not just at the eyes and the ocular health of the patient, but at the nutrition and health of the body as a whole.

And Dr. Gioia talks through what led to her adopting this type of patient care model onto her Optometry practice. How she went about doing [00:01:00] that and moving away from different vision plans and into more of a concierge type practice model.

All of the different trial and error and adaptation she went through and some of the challenges that she faced when working in this patient care model and I thought this was a fascinating conversation in a super interesting patient care model. If this is something you’ve been thinking about adopting onto your Optometry practice, hopefully this is helpful in making those decisions for yourself.

And if you have any questions, reach out to us. You can reach me You can check out all of the links and resources in the show notes, which you can find by scrolling down in whatever app you’re using or at the education hub at my website. www.optometrywealth.Com.

And while you’re there, check out all the other episodes and articles and resources we put together. And if you’ve been thinking about working with a financial planning firm that specializes in optometrists and Optometry practice owners, you can schedule a 30 minute no commitment introductory call, and we can talk about what’s on your mind financially and how we help optometrists [00:02:00] all over the country navigate those same decisions, and more. And without further ado, here is my conversation with Dr. Neda Gioia.

Start of the Interview with Dr. Neda Gioia, OD

Evon: And welcome back to the Optometry Money Podcast. I’m your host, Evon Mendrin, and I am very excited to have onto the podcast Dr. Neda Gioia. Dr. Gioia, thank you so much for coming on.

Neda Gioia: Thank you so much, Evon. It’s really cool that you’re highlighting this subject matter today, and I’m really excited to be a part of it.

Evon: I, I’m excited to talk with you because you have a, to me, to, to what I’ve seen a really unique way of, of creating a patient experience and creating a, a model of patient care that’s very holistic. That’s looking at not just the eyes, but the whole body. And so I, I’m excited to. To dive in and, and learn more about what you’re doing.

Why Did Dr. Gioia Get Into Optometry?

Evon: before we we dive into that fun stuff, I’d love to hear just a little bit about your background, what got you into [00:03:00] Optometry?

Neda Gioia: So I’m not gonna give you the classic answer of I loved eyes and I wanted to go into eyecare. It was my passion. It

Evon: Okay.

Neda Gioia: more through work. when I was younger, I always wanted to go into healthcare and I actually worked my way into Optometry. I first worked for a dentist in high school than I was thinking about dermatology and, I got referred to a local optometrist to work for and I enjoyed. The patient care, but I also enjoyed the retail aspect, which we don’t really talk about too much in Optometry in terms of enjoying both the medical side and the sales side. So, what ended up happening was I had a retail background as well and that really clicked with Optometry.

So I kept with it and I just kept going and became an optometrist. and it was great.

Evon: Interesting. Yeah, there is definitely a unique blend of retail and medical within Optometry, [00:04:00] that you don’t really see in other, healthcare fields. It’s always interesting to hear sort of the story of why someone gets into Optometry. sometimes it’s just they liked it more than the dentist and was as simple as that.

You know, sometimes it’s just the childhood experiences that got ’em in that direction. But, I appreciate you sharing that.

What Led to Her Cold-Starting Integrated Vision

Evon: And, and then what eventually led to you cold starting your current practice Integrated Vision?

Neda Gioia: so the cold practice was kind of where it. Naturally went to, I worked in 30 plus offices spanning three, four states. I had a very rich, associate level and practice kind of collaborative, experience, whether it was in the retail side, corporate private sector, and then. All those years I’ve always wanted my own, practice.

So when I got that opportunity and settled in New Jersey, I took that opportunity and truly just said the [00:05:00] best way for me to really inject all of my uniqueness as well as all my experiences is by Start. And that’s really where you can be the most creative, I feel. you know, there’s, there’s no, there’s no rules that are, you know, predating your, your start.

And I, I enjoyed really getting everything under my watch that was created by me. Whether it was mistakes that I made, which I feel like those are the best things ’cause you learn from that. or successful protocols or marketing strategies that I, you know, was able to execute.

Evon: That’s fascinating. You, it’s very often when you ask that question to someone. It, it, it’s very often about the freedom. It’s, you know, we, we talk a lot about, I mean, for me especially, we talk a lot about the financial aspects of the business and how that impacts an optometrist and their family, but it’s also a lot about the freedom of, the ability to build the patient care and to build the [00:06:00] business.

In the way that you want, right? You make, you’ve mentioned there’s no rules from the what came before, right? You’re not purchasing a practice and taking on all of whatever was going on in that practice before you, you’re able to build it from scratch and build it in the way that you envision. And, and you had all of that experience that you were able to build into it.

And I love that you mentioned creativity, right? You’re able to be, fully creative, you know, as creative as you want to in terms of this is how I envision things happening and this is the way I wanna do it. And you mentioned in, in some of your other conversations, you mentioned cold starting just before COVID that that could not have been an easy time to get a brand new Optometry practice off the ground.

What was that experience like?

Neda Gioia: I’m. So, you know, COVID was obviously a huge punch in everyone’s face, whether it was from the financial side to the emotional side, there was so much, that you really had to navigate during that [00:07:00] time. And me. I mean, now when I reflect on it, it really pushed me to get into digital exposure. I was not social media savvy.

I still not, you know, for, for general standards. But it allowed me to really think even more outside the box. So going back to that creative, tapping into, and it was not fun, but it was also. challenging in the sense of where can I grow this time that is not as standard as the business plan that I originally had.

You know what, one year mark you’re here. 2, 3, 4, 5. So I redid my whole business model really at that point, and it. In retrospect it was, it was good because I really was able to connect with so many more people that were not just within my small com [00:08:00] community, but even expand it more so. so it really, you know, it was scary, but I. know, when you go into a cold start, you’re already like, challenge oriented. So, I’m always not afraid of the challenge, so it, it was, it was difficult, but I navigated through it. Mm-hmm.

Evon: it’s, it’s interesting those times of, I don’t know, crisis is maybe a strong word, but those times of di difficulty definitely make you think outside the box and say, okay, how can we improve in ways that maybe we’ve not thought about before? And I. even just in my own, my own business, you know, I, I, I went through Covid and kind of learned a lot of those similar things.

Okay, what can we do differently? Knowing how the world has changed,

Neda Gioia: Correct.

Evon: how most people are more comfortable online, most people are more comfortable looking at things through the lens of the internet. So there’s definitely a lot you can take away from those.

What is “Integrative Health”?

Evon: And tell me a little bit about “integrative health”.

What is [00:09:00] that? How is that different from. Traditional eyecare or other specialties, tell us about that.

Neda Gioia: so integrative, I’m gonna put it, it’s really integrative healthcare,

Evon: Okay.

Neda Gioia: Because that’s, that’s the full scope of looking at it. And then eyecare is a part of that. So integrative health is really where you practice addressing root cause of dysfunction, versus treating symptomology. So you really, your, your goal is to try to support the body’s innate capacity to heal and really be resilient to that symptom of the disease. And in eyecare, I mean, I, I would say most people agree that the ocular system is very much connected to our systemic systems. And that that kind of really puts you in a place of then, then everything we do, in our [00:10:00] lifestyle must also affect our eyes long term. Or even short term. so really the integrative health model is to try to get to more root causes of the health problem versus really just the symptoms. now in eyecare, because there’s really no, I would say no, black and white definition of that, it comes down to how comfortable the practitioner is, and that really comes down to your education. What you’ve been exposed to already in that space, and if you have, advanced education within that space, or if you have a collaborative office where you have other practitioners that do understand that type of model.

So, yeah, it’s more of the healthcare role versus the eyecare role. I always try to make it more general because it is, it’s connecting things that you would never connect in a standard. [00:11:00] Strict, allopathic care approach.

Evon: Hmm, and, and I, I feel like it might be easy to sort of segment. That as someone, you know, some other healthcare professional’s job, rather than including that into an Optometry practice. So what, what led you to then incorporate that style of patient care into your own business? What, what led you to that?

Neda Gioia: everything I do career wise after the age of, I’m not gonna give you my current age, but

Evon: Okay.

Neda Gioia: At 31, I had a massive, healthcare crisis.

Evon: Hmm.

Neda Gioia: And, you know, going back to, you know, sometimes the bad things lead you to things that good, things that you have never planned. After navigating classic allopathic healthcare and really not getting anywhere with it, I was exposed to the functional medicine and integrative healthcare model personally,

Evon: Hmm.

Neda Gioia: that success, and I [00:12:00] was, and I felt much better.

that success led me to being thirsty for more and also thinking, you know, I’m in the healthcare field, I’m treating patients. Am I doing everything I can? Is there more? Is it just because I, maybe I didn’t learn about it in Optometry school. there more ways that I can start teaching these patients ways to mitigate disease? that was really, that was the spark. So after that crisis and everything I went through, it’s, it’s kind of like my. You know, long-term, lifetime mission of being able to incorporate that mindset and that approach into my classical training.

I didn’t wanna get rid of Optometry. Right. but it’s, it’s almost like when you see the light, it can’t, you can’t even think the [00:13:00] same anymore. so the emotional and the, I’m gonna call it a little bit spiritual, alongside the foundational, education of being, you know, touched by this type of healthcare system, then just gave me the. Motivation and the courage to really test whatever I could test within the space of eyecare, because at that point I’m very, I was very comfortable in the standard primary care practice of Optometry, as you said, I, I’ve. Had my experience pretty full.

It was just now where can I start injecting my new knowledge? And that’s where I started going back to school. And I’m still in school. I’m always in school to continuously push the limits and expand that way of [00:14:00] thinking. And I knew if I don’t integrate it, I, you know. Don’t try to figure out a way to make this blended, then I’m never gonna be happy with my career path.

Evon: So that’s,

Neda Gioia: something missing.

Evon: that’s fascinating. Your own experience personally led you to learn more and more, and through that learning, you had realized, I can’t not offer this to, to my patients. You know, you, you’ve, you’ve seen the light. It sounds like you’ve had this sort of aha moment and you couldn’t, you couldn’t not offer it to your own patients, it sounds like.

How Do You Start to Add Holistic Healthcare Into an Optometry Practice

Evon: And. How do you even begin to start to integrate that into an Optometry practice? Like where, where does that start?

Neda Gioia: luckily. Because during my education, I was, I was working, I, I didn’t take off. I was working and educating at the same time

Evon: Hmm.

Neda Gioia: different practices. It wasn’t my, my personal practice yet, [00:15:00] I started dabbling. It was, that’s really how I just started dabbling. You know, a patient that I knew was probably deficient in vitamin D, for example, as simple as that. I would start asking some questions. this was in a very classic standard primary care Optometry practice. And in, of, you know, thinking that it’s like taking too long, I would find ways to have that conversation.

Evon: Mm.

Neda Gioia: You know, maybe we’re not, you know, talking about X, Y, Z, now we’re talking about some mitigating factors of health, improving your health, et cetera. And what I started feeling was, and the, the response started to become so, it, it was just so good. It felt so good. ’cause patients would start commenting on, wow, I never knew that, that, was something that’s connected to eye health. Or, [00:16:00] I didn’t even, I didn’t even know that that existed. or. Thank you so much for commenting on this.

I always wondered what the real, what, what the real reason was for perhaps y, Z symptoms. or I, I’ve had so much issues with my gut health and no one’s really asked me questions. I just kind of deal with it. So it was that response level that just made me understand that this, you have to keep going with it.

So let’s start thinking about. Solutions.

Evon: Hmm.

Neda Gioia: So, you know, going back to the, to the cold practice mindset, you know, I’m, I just started thinking of solutions. How am I gonna blend the models? How am I gonna start microdosing these questions and start creating these little pockets of protocols where, and, and it just kind of built. And by the time I started my own practice, I was already doing some things. [00:17:00] And then I just started creating service, service routes for patients that wanted more. and I was taking insurance at the time, lots of insurance, and blending it with insurance and understanding that, that insurance model doesn’t really support some of these ways of giving patients more education in nutrition or lifestyle medicine. So it was, it was a challenge again, but a good challenge because I was, again,

Evon: It, it sounds like, healthy amounts of trial and error. Starting small

Neda Gioia: and

Evon: and seeing what works and then adapting as you go.

Neda Gioia: Mm-hmm.

The Patient Experience of Integrated Vision

Evon: and so what is the, what is the patient experience like now? You know, as you kind of go through that, what does that look like for a patient coming into your practice and going through that?

Neda Gioia: So I’ve, going back to the pivot, I am like the master of pivoting. my current patient [00:18:00] model is very different than when I started the cold start. which again is, I like that because it creates growth in my, in the way I’m managing my practice. So. There’s, there’s part A and now I’m at like, let’s just say in the middle of the alphabet and I wanna get to Z at some point.

Right. but I would say right now I’m very shifted. I’m 100% concierge. Like I don’t take any in insurance. It’s a one-on-one only. I’ve reduced my clinical in-person time. I think that’s not as applicable. your audience versus what I did in the beginning.

Evon: Hmm.

Neda Gioia: So in the beginning it was, the approach was obviously always high level attention and all the things that we say in [00:19:00] the primary eye care space. you know, giving patients that feeling that they’re an individual and we’re giving them good. Good support, whether it’s from staff, that phone call, the website. But in terms of the integrative model, the biggest start point was educating the staff regarding our additional services to the insurance model.

Evon: Mm.

Neda Gioia: So the primary insurance model, again, depends on your demographic. Obviously everybody works different states, different areas, but whatever that insurance model was. Then offering this, these add-on services where a patient can navigate a higher level of education in nutrition, lifestyle, supplements, whatever that protocol would, would be needed for their, for, for their concerns. and adding that into the [00:20:00] schedule. So it was really trying to create. A service based add-on system where we were able to still use the patient’s insurance, also give them this hu very valuable extra time.

Evon: Hmm.

Neda Gioia: And that’s really where that’s, was the biggest system change that I did. and the first thing is the questions.

It’s really the questions that you ask, the type of questions. We asked, were outside of the standard, ocular, you know, complaints, et cetera, is lifestyle questions, simple ones not going too invasive, and offering these services with, with, you know, some transcripts and teaching, the staff how to approach it, and getting patients on board for it. And also then once they, once they were on board. [00:21:00] Going through the, the new service, ended up happening, they’re telling a friend, they’re

Evon: S.

Neda Gioia: family member. so improved referrals.

Evon: So I I it, it sounds like there’s been this evolution. You, you, you enjoy the trial and error of like, of starting something and watching it and improving it. And, initially it sounds like you took insurances, at least vision plans, medical insurances, perhaps. And now have shifted over to this more non-insurance concierge type service, which is interesting there.

If you are in any of the online groups around Optometry, inevitably there’s going to be questions around, should I or should I not take vision plans with a whole range of opinions of what that person should do? And at the end of the day, it does seem like it really just comes down to what is your. What is your practice going to be like?

Who, who are you serving? What is your scope of care? And then you back into the required [00:22:00] relationships you need to have. If we’re gonna call vision plan a relationship, then you can back into the required relationships you need to have. But starting with. Okay, what is your vision for the practice? And who are you serving and what are you providing to them?

And you definitely, you nailed that. You, you started with what are you providing for who, and then you decided to remove the things that were unnecessary for that or didn’t contribute to that. And, and is that additional, more holistic, type service, is that still an add-on to the primary, to the primary eyecare model?

Or is it, is it, is it more integrated where every patient now receives. Receive sort of the full bundle.

Neda Gioia: majority. So, no. I have my patients that just like me as an optometrist

Evon: Gotcha. Okay.

Neda Gioia: and, and that I, I still always have. Let’s just say an elevated conversation, about whole body health.

Evon: Yeah.

Neda Gioia: it’s autopilot for me. but I do, I have, because of my education in so much in [00:23:00] optics and know, I’ve navigated some great solutions and I do have those very loyal patients that are just my standard eye care patients.

And some of my patients are already. Within the integrative space, and they have a very high level functional medicine practitioner that I, I probably personally know, and they just want an eye doctor that understands when they give them their list of medication and supplements that they’re not in shock.

So that’s the one biggest thing is, I did keep my standard. Eyecare, services. I still have the add-on model. Absolutely. I actually find it great because it, it kind of like makes my practice stand out

Evon: Hmm.

Neda Gioia: and, you know, I, I also have very full scope, full on nutrition, workups as well.

Evon: Gotcha.

Neda Gioia: a whole different. That’s a third part of my [00:24:00] practice. So, no, I don’t see myself taking it away. I think, I think, standard practices, I think what’s good about this type of version is that you don’t force everyone to do it,

Evon: Yeah.

Neda Gioia: but you give them the option You know what, if you know one year they can’t afford it, and it’s okay, you may, you may, you know, touch up on things, but they don’t need that whole comprehensive, extra time. but the fact that it’s there is approachable and it allows that communica higher level communication and again, makes your practice stand out and you don’t have to dump primary I eyecare.

Evon: Yeah. Okay.

Neda Gioia: know, and that was one of the other things that I did with my practice. The goal was not for everything to be under my watch.

It was kind of thinking critically, can this be, can this replicate in other practices? Can this happen a practice that has like 10 [00:25:00] practitioners higher volume? Yes. And that was, that was the goal of this, is, is there a way that this can be blended? just the way I make it. Of course I’m in this like creative, you know, artistic

Evon: Mm-hmm.

Neda Gioia: pivot constantly.

But is there a way that this can be used within other facilities? And that that’s the impact factor that I always wanted with my own practice, wasn’t just my personal practice and success and all of those things. It was how can I increase the number of doctors that do this?

Evon: Gotcha.

Neda Gioia: long, long term impact, a much higher number of patients. Right.

Evon: Yeah.

Neda Gioia: So,

What Investments Are Required to Add Integrative Healthcare To An Optometry Practice?

Evon: So you, you. You, you know, very often when, when some, when an optometrist wants to bring in like a new specialty or a new, a new area of, of care into the practice, there’s often some investment, right? It’s a new equipment. It’s adding on an associate that has experience within that, that [00:26:00] mode of practice.

So what are the investments needed to, to provide care like you’re providing in terms of specialized knowledge in terms of who you’re hiring? Like what, what does that look like?

Neda Gioia: it’s comparatively to, you know, the fancy machines that we have in eyecare

Evon: Yeah.

Neda Gioia: that you probably have heard of. There’s not as much of that, big load of, you know, trying to get some sort of, fancy machine into the practice. But I would say the biggest is time. It’s actually not so much money, it’s time. And when I say time, it’s even if you hired the proper team within your practice, you want to at least understand a little bit of the language. And that takes a little bit of time, in terms of reading. educating yourself in whether it’s nutrition and functional medicine [00:27:00] approach. any, you know, so you have to navigate some certifications if you want, if you wanna do it yourself.

You obviously have to navigate some, some advanced certifications. I think in terms of staffing, there’s two ways of approaching and staffing. And I love the staffing of, in, in, in. Integrative health because typically the staff to learn

Evon: Hmm.

Neda Gioia: So if you’re, you have an existing staff member. A lot of, a lot of the staff, they wanna get healthier, they wanna learn, they’re like, oh, nutrition, I want, I would love to learn more about that. So you can designate a staff member to perhaps take some courses that are within more of a health coach level, very easy online, and you could kind of invest in that.

And usually it’s a couple thousand dollars at most. or you can actually start navigating hiring a different type of staff

Evon: Mm

Neda Gioia: instead of going [00:28:00] your classic front desk person, you can navigate a health coach,

Evon: mm.

Neda Gioia: educated person who has admin qualities or, you know, experience as well. And, I have found with the increase of, staffing, hourly wages, et cetera, it’s starting to kind of get closer and closer where you’re not spending, as, you know, as more than you would think.

For, some Certified health coaches, within the staff too, to help really support the system that you want to start to create. in terms of machines, there are some, antioxidant machines out there that are great for in office use. they don’t. You know, they’re not expensive. It’s really navigating your website, creating funnels for whether it’s supplement sales, which again, it doesn’t really. Increase, there’s not much money upfront,

Evon: Hmm.

Neda Gioia: [00:29:00] yet I would say there’s not too much going on in terms of money upfront comparatively to a lot of the other specialties. And it doesn’t have to be so much of a specialty tier either. It, you can navigate this and create small, a smaller, you know. to almost every specialty in of itself.

Like even though it sounds like this is a specialty, it really isn’t. It, it applies to almost every aspect of eyecare.

Evon: Mm, interesting.

Neda Gioia: yeah.

What Certifications Should Optometrists Aim For?

Evon: So, no, no. Massive OCT purchase on the front end. It, it sounds like it’s mostly about knowledge and education and are, do you have examples you can share of specific certifications that someone might want to look into that you know are, are really good? I.

Neda Gioia: So I, I navigate this a lot. I get a lot of questions like, what did, where’d you go? How’d you learn? my first, first recommendation and going back to the [00:30:00] health coaching, some docs end up taking on health coaching certifications. Now, I’m not saying that that is bad. I just, I like to use my licensing

Evon: Mm. Mm-hmm.

Neda Gioia: to the utmost level. So, for me it’s why would I go through a health coaching, you know, system, type of certification when I can just hire somebody and they could work under me. instead, I would like to be connected to maybe something that’s for licensed professionals and that’s a little bit different. So I would say the biggest, some of the biggest platforms are the American Nutrition Association has multiple ways of getting higher level education and nutrition. The, Institute of Functional Medicine, that has a very robust program for functional medicine. A4M, which is for longevity. that’s another, very high [00:31:00] level longevity functional medicine certification. And then my favorite, of course, is the Ocular Wellness and Nutrition Society. I did serve as their past president and we’ve navigated a lot of ways to incorporate education to optometrists and ophthalmologists to add, nutrition within their, their scope of practice or even just, you know, streamline, some recommendations and handouts, et cetera, for, for their clinics. So, there’s a few ways to start.

but the, the first thing is, do you believe in it? That’s my, I always say that’s, it’s very important do you believe in this, approach because that’s going to really come, come off with your patients. And, you know, change is hard, know, changing somebody’s, diet or lifestyle management. It’s, it’s not easy, but if you believe in it, there’s a lot more connection that you have with, with the patient [00:32:00] just naturally organically.

And it does.

Evon: Yeah, it’s, it’s interesting how you describe it as if you are, if you are the licensed professional, use your, your time investments if you’re going to get higher education on things that only the licensed professional, more geared towards a licensed professional. other things, you can hire someone to do that, right.

Use your time in the best way possible. I thought that’s an interesting way to approach it, and I’ll, I’ll try to find. And put some of these things into the show notes or, if you can email over that would be great as well.

What Metrics and KPIs Does She Watch in Her Practice?

Evon: But, as you, as you look at your experience, sort of going through trial and error, and especially knowing that you’ve added on a service or that you have a business that isn’t, that isn’t like the quote unquote average or typical Optometry practice.

So are, are there any particular benchmark measures or KPIs that you looked at? In your practice that are different than maybe the more traditional Optometry practice to see what’s working [00:33:00] and what needs to be adjusted.

Neda Gioia: Well, I mean, one classic, you know, one classic thing is just your percentage of people upgrading. You know who, who is, who’s actually, how many numbers are you getting per month with these additional services?

Evon: Uhhuh.

Neda Gioia: You know? So that’s a very simple benchmark.

Evon: Yeah.

Neda Gioia: The other benchmark, which was actually unique, and I was, and I might be doing a, a little bit of a, an article with a, a local optician. What we found was, and again, going back into my retail mind, when you, when, because I, I also had full optical too because I, I did it all. And you know, one of the biggest things with the optical service was are patients going to upgrade? All of the bench, you know, all of the, upgrade features of really high, high level lenses.

For example, when you sell glasses. And what we found wa was that our patients that had higher [00:34:00] level purchasing patterns with nutrition add-ons, they were also at the highest tier in their optical purchases.

Evon: Interesting.

Neda Gioia: think that that doesn’t make sense, but it does because at this point they are, they, they have a level, a sense of this facility is really taking care of me,

Evon: Hmm.

Neda Gioia: and if we’re gonna recommend. Good anti-reflective coding and, you know, other ways of, you know, wider channel progressives and digital, you know, digital progressives, et cetera. Then the trust is there.

Evon: Mm.

Neda Gioia: our sales numbers in our optical upgrades were very high too, which it, again, two different worlds, but it

Evon: Yeah.

Neda Gioia: actually reflect on that. A trust factor. And it, it’s not like you’re selling ’em a bad product, it’s just that you want the [00:35:00] best for them.

Evon: Yeah.

Neda Gioia: so yes, there was some pretty, pretty amazing benchmarks going, you know, come going along. And also I phased out of insurance. It wasn’t like the plug, I started one by one. And seeing how many you have to, you know, calculate how many patients stay on, how many patients leave, et cetera. and it was, and it, you know, did what it had to do for us to continue the practice. the way that I thought was, was good and, yeah. Yeah.

Evon: So you’re, you are essentially sort of watching this capture rate of who ended up upgrading into the, the more holistic model, and you found that there’s a higher level of trust with those that did. And if they’re going to go somewhere for on the optical side. They already trust you as their, as their provider.

So they’re going to, they’re fully bought into your practice. That’s, that’s interesting.

What Were Challenges to Implementing Integrative Healthcare Into Her Optometry Practice?

Evon: And what are some challenges to, to building this model? It didn’t sound like you had a playbook of people that have done it before. You, you know, what, what were some of the [00:36:00] challenges?

Neda Gioia: systems. So the, because there’s no playbook. There’s no systems, So for example, your EMR. You know, the way you see a patient has to have all of these, you know, specialized modifications, right? Or MR there wasn’t a place to put X, Y, Z, so I actually had to integrate a second. EMR. the level that I’m

Evon: Mm. Mm-hmm.

Neda Gioia: because it didn’t, you know, the standard optical EMR didn’t have that, so that was a huge challenge. The other challenge was paperwork. So, I mean, we know paperwork, no one wants to do paperwork. Right?

Evon: Right.

Neda Gioia: and when you start asking a lot of questions about how you’re doing, how, how life is going and, you know, are you taking certain supplements and how do you know? You need to know that. somebody has to. Fill out something and where, what’s the best way to get this to the patient [00:37:00] as streamlined as possible so that they’re not burdened? you know, so there there is a few, I would say, systems challenges because of the fact that this is not customary,

Evon: Hmm.

Neda Gioia: but that’s where I love to navigate, you know?

So I created some systems. I created the, the way to funnel patients in a certain, EMR that than the standard one that we’re using. And, I think the other biggest challenge is when you have staff that’s already well-versed in primary care Optometry, it’s. A challenge. This is something new.

Evon: Mm.

Neda Gioia: learn something new. so finding staff members that have that, you know, core primary care, Optometry background, and now injecting all this new information, you may get some, some pushback at first ’cause it’s not what’s standard for them. But once they get into it, I’ve found that they all like it ’cause they’re learning a little bit from, for [00:38:00] themselves too.

Evon: Yeah.

Neda Gioia: and patients just tend to be happier. You know, it’s, feel happier when they’re in your presence, when you really engage with them at this level. so those were the few highlights of the challenges. I’m sure there’s more, but you know, I probably forgot them.

Evon: That’s, I mean, that’s, that is, I, I do see that that tends to be the case, even again in my own business where when you start to move out of the mold of how all of these tools and technologies are set to be, there’s always going to be systems challenges. ’cause you have to change things. You have to make new, you know, new tools.

In order for you to do all this, you have to create new systems and processes. So. it sounds like you’ve navigated that very well and, and you enjoy that again, trial and error and trying things out and adjusting and adapting as you go.

Final Thoughts for the Listeners

Evon: And, what are some last words for the listener that’s maybe hearing this, interested in this approach, wondering what to do next?

What, what are some last words you’d like to leave with them?

Neda Gioia: the biggest [00:39:00] is that integrative healthcare, I’m gonna also call it the wellness sector, is not a trend. It’s not going away. If anything, going to only see it increase not only in Optometry, but within the whole scope of healthcare. We see it. the subspecialty, I’ll call it, you know, within medical school models are, you know, starting residency models and hospital systems.

Our local hospital here has started a whole department, about lifestyle medicine. So. To think that this is something that you’ll never hear or that you’ll never learn is not right. So one, just know the words because it’s coming to your communities. You’re going to see it on the internet and social media, and if anything, it’s only growing.

Evon: Mm.

Neda Gioia: The second thing is if [00:40:00] you are able to embrace. A partial model, then think of yourself as special and just go for it. You will stand out, you will be liked by community, you’ll be liked by patients. And frankly, we need as many practitioners right now that we can adopt because our healthcare system is really in a rut. And, know, the, the time to change is now, the time to start is now. And. Go in with confidence and it doesn’t take too much to start, especially if you’re motivated.

Evon: Well, I, I appreciate that and I appreciate your time today. This is fascinating to me. As a consumer of healthcare and eyecare, I love hearing what you’re saying and that this is now being incorporated into, into healthcare as a whole.

And I think it’s fascinating what you’re doing.

What Excites Her The Most About The Future of Optometry?

Evon: And one last question that I always ask for, for the guest is, when you think about the future of Optometry and, and in this context, private practice, Optometry, what excites you the most?[00:41:00]

Neda Gioia: The exciting part of the future of Optometry is tech technology adoption,

Evon: Hmm.

Neda Gioia: also in the wellness sector. I know artificial intelligence, I’m not gonna get into that. That’s a whole nother podcast I’m sure you’ve had already, that’s our future to streamline chair time. And to improve patient outcome. And I believe in that whole, very much so within the primary care practice and also blended with the, integrative type of practice that is what is going to be revolutionizing how we practice as optometrists and really improving our, just our profession.

Evon: Well, I, I appreciate that. and again, I appreciate your time. For the listener, appreciate you listening today. Reach out to us if you have any questions, I will put, all of the resources, links we talked about in the show notes and we will catch you all in the next episode. In the meantime, take [00:42:00]