“I love what I do every day. That’s the easy stuff. It’s the running the practice that is the necessary evil.” – Dr. Erin McCleary
Independent practice owners are under pressure from all sides. Corporate retail, online competition and rising costs are making it harder for independent practices to stay competitive while still delivering the kind of care patients expect. Behind the clinical work, practice owners are also balancing staffing, training, insurance, pricing, and the ongoing challenge of building a sustainable business.
Erin McCleary, OD, of Clear Horizon Eyecare in Plainville, Connecticut, says the hardest part of practice ownership is not the optometry itself, but the management burden. “It’s the HR; it’s the management of people,” she says. “I went to school to be an optometrist.” She says the stress often starts with retention and team cohesion, but it quickly extends to finances. When she wants to introduce new doctors, programs, or specialties, she has to think through both how to make the numbers work and how to bring the team along without creating friction.
LEVERAGING SUPPORT IS CRITICAL
“I need it to be successful independent of me.” – Dr. Beth Seidman
For Beth Seidman, OD, of the Eyecare Center of Ken Caryl in Littleton, Colorado, that thinking didn’t happen overnight. When she bought her practice more than 10 years ago, the priority was simply making it function. Today, it’s about building a practice supported by systems that allow her to lead without constant oversight. “I need it to be successful independent of me,” Dr. Seidman says. “I need it to function and grow with me here, but it also needs to do that if I’m not.”
Strong systems do more than free up the doctor. They help teams work more consistently, reduce costly complexity and create opportunities to improve profitability across the optical.
To achieve that, a practice has to invest in a well-trained staff. Nick Salas, NCLE, practice manager at the Eyecare Center of Ken Caryl, says, “It takes a lot of time to train someone on how to do something. Then you have to get them independent, and then you have to get them comfortable doing it in front of a patient and making it smooth.” For him, that time is worth it: “Investing in staff education and setting the time to train your staff, it’s worth it in the long run.” His point is simple: strong teams do not happen by accident, and the quality of the patient experience often depends on how well staff are prepared.
PRIVATE PAY CAPTURE RATE SOLUTIONS
Staff preparation matters even more when conversations get complicated. Salas notes that there are many engineers among the practice’s patients. These patients tend to ask detailed questions and expect high-quality products. “Most of our patients are managed care,” he says, “so they don’t understand their insurance and we have to explain it to them. That’s not always a good conversation.” He adds that pricing is often where things become difficult, especially if patients want to shop around with their prescription.
However, for patients who have no managed vision or want to go outside of their plan, IDOC offers a private pay capture rate solution that provides patients clarity and value and protects margins for the practice.
As members of the IDOC network, these eyecare professionals appreciate the new solution IDOC is bringing to the market to help them address these pain points and compete effectively. IDOC takes the advantages of scale and puts that in the hands of independent business owners, helping them serve more patients, provide market-leading products, compete across the market and spend less time managing operations and more time focused on patient care.
REDUCE LENS COSTS BY 25%
Clerra is a direct response to that need. It offers a comprehensive ophthalmic lens range, available exclusively through IDOC Labs, designed to simplify dispensing and deliver meaningful cost savings without asking practices to compromise on quality or technology. Essentially, it recovers money that competitive forces have been draining from the doctor’s business.
“Clerra represents a smarter, more efficient way for independent practices to serve their patients while strengthening their business. By simplifying the lens decision process into a focused, high-performing range, practices can spend less time explaining options and more time building trust with patients,” says IDOC President and CEO, Dave Brown.
A practice can see 25% savings on typical lab bills*.
It is not a stripped-down option. It is a curated lens selection that covers about 90% of everyday dispensing needs, including single vision and progressive lenses across premium materials, along with advanced anti-reflective coatings, photochromic and polarized options. It’s all backed by IDOC Labs’ global supply chain, which serves more than 7,000 practices and 50 million patients worldwide.
CUT THROUGH COMPLEXITY
Clerra cuts through complexity. Instead of navigating hundreds of SKUs and brands, practices rely on a curated range that covers ∼90% of everyday dispensing needs. Less friction. Faster, more confident conversations. Better patient outcomes.
The value is both financial and operational. For owners, Clerra creates room to compete on value, improve margins and reinvest in growth and staff.
For dispensing teams, it reduces complexity: fewer options, faster conversations and more confident recommendations. And for practices trying to serve the full market—not just premium patients—it creates a path to better economics and broader access.
Clerra is built by and for independent practices, with no retail chain, private equity or insurance agenda behind it. In a market where scale has too often worked against independents, IDOC is using its supply chain to help put money back into local practices—and, in turn, help those practices better serve the communities that depend on them.
