Tammy Richert, OD, practiced in Hawaii, Missouri, Illinois, Georgia and Belgium during her husband’s active US Air Force career. When he retired in 2011, the couple and their children settled back in Nebraska, not far from where Dr. Richert grew up. She says that it felt like it was time to plant her own roots after so many moves and working for others. She was ready to look for an ownership opportunity.
Dr. Richert spent three years working for a private practice that she intended to buy into. But when they couldn’t come to an agreement on the terms, the deal fell through. That’s when Dr. Richert received an important phone call from Heidi Lichtenberg, OD, a local optometrist in Omaha, after another local OD told her that Dr. Richert was looking for opportunities. There was an opening to join Dr. Lichtenberg’s practice, EyeCare West, and the founding doctor Steven Gradowski, OD, had plans to cut back his hours and retire in a few years.
The offer was appealing as a place to work and potentially become an owner. EyeCare West had a great reputation thanks to the hard work that Dr. Gradowski and his team had put in during the 40 years since he opened the practice. “He had a strong patient base. Everyone comes back because of how they are treated in this practice,” Dr. Richert says. She felt that her mindset aligned with Dr. Lichtenberg and Dr. Gradowski on how to care for patients and how to practice. “I like the idea of bouncing things off each other: ‘What do you think about doing this with a patient?’ It’s a good doctor-doctor relationship, which is good for the patient-doctor relationship.”
She joined the team in 2015, and she bought out Dr. Gradowski in 2018. He still works a few days per week when he’s in town and, most recently, helped to cover maternity leave for their newest OD, Katherine Schmidt, OD.
A SPACE OF THEIR OWN
In April 2021, Dr. Richert and Dr. Lichtenberg began renovating to relocate to their new office, just two blocks away from where the practice had been for the previous decade. It offered more space, better parking and the chance to own and stop paying someone else rent. The former Village Inn restaurant had been for sale with a shopping complex, but the COVID-19 pandemic changed the owner’s mind about selling it separately.
The four outside walls and roof stayed the same, but nearly everything else changed. Updating the floors was an important step; they had to be releveled since the restaurant had a large grease trap built in. Dr. Richert and Dr. Lichtenberg worked with an architecture company but ultimately spent many hours designing the space themselves to make sure the layout was just right. Dr. Richert describes the space as a pod setting with one large pretesting area with one door leading in and one to exit. From the tech station, the staff can see almost every exam room to know if assistance is needed. They currently run out of six exam lanes with a seventh for IPL.
Dr. Lichtenberg led the way in selecting elements to match their desired style: rustic cabin chic with a mountain feel. There’s beautiful, local reclaimed wood used in the frame displays in the optical, which is five times larger than in the previous space with double the number of frames. One wall is made entirely of windows, offering great natural light. They’ve found it’s a little bright for dilating patients, so they are looking into adding pull-down shades to control it when needed.
The team appreciates the consolidated contact lens storage, which is all in one place now instead of in cabinets lining the hallways. There’s a larger break room with a refrigerator and water dispenser, as well as a quiet room with a massage chair. That space is perfect for a peaceful 15-minute break or for nursing moms on the staff who want a private space.
Another fun addition to the new office is a drive-through window for picking up contact lenses. “One cool thing about our office is that our doctors are multi-generational,” Dr. Richert says, with about a decade between each doctor. It’s been valuable having those multiple opinions when making practice decisions, Dr. Richert says. “As we were designing the new office, Dr. Lichtenberg’s kids were younger, and Dr. Schmidt had a toddler and a baby on the way. We talked about how great a contact lens drive-through would be.”
SERVING GENERATIONS TO COME
The new 5,200 square foot office officially opened in November 2021. Dr. Richert says that they now have the room to better serve their patient base. They’re continuing to offer specialty services such as CRT, myopia control, sclerals and dry eye treatment with room to grow. Since moving to the new space, they added intense pulse light therapy as well as neurolenses to their lineup of options for patients.
The doctors utilize large TV screens in each exam lane for imaging display, education and promotion of their services. They’ve also incorporated the use of scribes for every exam; if a physical tech is not available to help, they use a virtual scribe. “We can look at the patient instead of typing,” Dr. Richert says.
Dr. Richert recalls the transition to a paperless, electronic health system when they made the move. Some longtime patients had two files worth of records that needed to be scanned in. Their loyalty is a testament to the mark the practice has made in the community, and now the doctors are positioned to continue providing care for years to come.
All photos, unless otherwise stated, were provided by Dr. Tammy Richert.
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