Optometrists Building Empires

[00:00:00]

Ankit Patel: Today's guest is quite the entrepreneur and he's gonna tell us about a really unique way he grew his empire. He's an outstanding ENT entrepreneur and an optometrist. He proudly carries on the practice His father founded in 1985, continuing a 40 year tradition of clinical excellence and community focused care. Under his leadership, his practice has been voted best in Allen, Texas for four consecutive years. He has a full scope private practice and started an after hours eyecare network that's empowering optometrists to bring specially eyecare, clinic hours.

[00:01:00] Instead of sending patients to the ER or urgent care, owner and optometrist of Allen Eyecare Center. welcome Dr. Brooks Wood Brooks. Welcome.

Brooks Wood: Thank you so much.

Ankit Patel: you, you have a real unique business in how you grew your empire. Uh, but starting off with our main thesis is, you know, what was the most important thing that helped you grow your empire?

Brooks Wood: So I think the perspective of experimental growth, so many entrepreneurs we're our own worst enemies. And just starting something, getting it off the ground, not worrying about is it gonna fail, right? But experimental growth is, we're gonna try something. We're gonna do our best. We're not gonna be afraid to fail, and we're just gonna continue to refine until we hit our rhythm.

Ankit Patel: Yeah. And so tell me a little bit about what that means. Can you gimme a, like a example of how that, um, that, that's guided you through some tough times.

Brooks Wood: [00:02:00] Oh, absolutely. Um, taking over, uh, practice of, um, I guess, let's see, 30, uh, six years at the time. I mean, it's a, it's a large ship that's, you know, going a certain direction and, um, has a lot of good things going for it. A lot of great, uh, reputation in the community, um, but still has a lot of opportunity, uh, for growth and connection as, uh, eyecare, especially optometry just continues to expand our scope and, uh, really, you know, not being afraid to get into myopia management, get into fitting specialty contact lenses.

Um, but furthermore, um, even getting into the after hours emergency space, um, is probably my biggest. Um, experimental growth that I've personally taken and, uh, could I tell you a little bit more about that?

Ankit Patel: Yeah. Yeah. [00:03:00] Actually, I'm curious because what made you want to drive that growth? It's like, what, what, what was that impetus behind trying that? Uh, you could, I mean, you could have easily said, Hey, I've got a great practice. Just why, just keep coasting. Right. So what,

Brooks Wood: yeah,

Ankit Patel: you wanna grow?

Brooks Wood: absolutely. Um, one, it was those Monday morning patients that came in that said they had no other place to go, and so they went to medical facility, er, regular urgent care, or, you know, a, a large majority of those do not have an eyecare professional, readily available. And they either did not receive any treatment, they just got the go see your eye doctor on Monday, um, or they received treatment that.

The, you know, medical professional was doing their best with the equipment that they have. Right. But, um, because they don't treat eyes all the time, it was just one of those scenarios, say like an iritis that, you know, got [00:04:00] treated like a basic conjunctivitis. And then by Monday now they're in a world of pain, possibly, you know, some permanent vision, uh, damage or loss.

And, uh, I just really felt like, okay, we, we gotta figure something else out here because we can, we can do better. And that's, um, that's really where my experimental growth with after hours and weekend emergency eye care begin.

Ankit Patel: Yeah, and, and you know, I think there's an underlying assumption there that we hear in a lot of our guests is it's about the patient care first.

Brooks Wood: Oh, absolutely.

Ankit Patel: What I'm hearing is you saw that need from your patients having issues like really potentially serious issues. And saying like, you know what, I'm gonna, I'm gonna try this.

It's 'cause Yeah, I, most folks mo most doctors are like, I'll just give you my cell phone over the weekend. We'll figure it out. Or

Brooks Wood: Sure. Yeah, yeah,

Ankit Patel: talk, talk to me. How, why not just do that approach? Why not just have like a partner referral, uh, company that, that may see you on the weekends or come in, give 'em cell phone number. Like tell me [00:05:00] how, how your, your network bloomed and why, why this particular setup.

Brooks Wood: yeah. It, uh, the need is actually really great. Um, what I got from patients was that, that I actually had given them my number. Um, you know, my dad and the other associate had given, um, you know, their numbers. It was even on our, um, you know, after hours call we would, uh, or, or voicemail, right? We would rotate call and, uh, they wouldn't, they wouldn't reach out to us.

They were just, I guess, trying to be respectful. You know, you have families, you've got something going on, or, you know, oh, I just, I just kind of figured. You know, the, the, the ER could, could probably do good enough until I could come see you. And, and unfortunately that wasn't the case. So, um, you know, having that branding, urgent eye care, uh, communicates that we're ready, we're equipped, we are passionate [00:06:00] and have made ourselves intentionally available to serve these people, um, in those moments on nights and weekends.

Ankit Patel: Yeah. So not an afterthought. You were like in 10, you're like, Hey, you know what? We know. 'cause I, if you, if I think about it, uh, you know what, what I would guess, and you tell me if this is right or wrong, a patient comes to you once, maybe twice a year, maybe more than that, but basically once a year

Brooks Wood: Yeah.

Ankit Patel: Months, which is the

Brooks Wood: Right.

Ankit Patel: Average.

Brooks Wood: Yeah.

Ankit Patel: They're, they don't think, oh, I have eye problem. Lemme go see my doctor, uh, Lacey eye problem. I need to call someone that can get this fixed. My eye

Brooks Wood: Right.

Ankit Patel: Open. So I, I need to go to emergency. I don't think like, oh, I have my eye doctor's phone

Brooks Wood: Yeah.

Ankit Patel: Just

Brooks Wood: Yeah. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Yep. That is exactly the thought path they have.

Ankit Patel: Hmm. So you're trying to be where they are and not, um, it's, it's a very, very patient centric approach. I like that.

Brooks Wood: Yeah, absolutely. We've also focused on connecting with the lo local urgent cares and [00:07:00] ERs as well too. Um, I have a family member that they are, um, high up in a Texas, um, ER system, and when I told them that we were doing that, they were like, oh my gosh. Uh, please, I wanna tell all my ER doctors because we would love to get rid of the eye problems.

Um, we will try our best, but we would love to connect with an eyecare professional that is specifically looking to do that.

Ankit Patel: That's great.

Brooks Wood: And when I heard that, that just put fuel on the fire and, um, that's a major connection that we, we try to do for each of our urgent eye care locations

Ankit Patel: Okay,

Brooks Wood: we're gonna talk about.

Ankit Patel: Little bit blocking and tackling in a second.

Brooks Wood: But what,

Ankit Patel: what did

Brooks Wood: what did

Ankit Patel: as you were growing this? What did you run into that you didn't expect?

Brooks Wood: one, the, the quantity of need, right? I mean, it was blue ocean, kind of how many people are out there? Um, did a lot of [00:08:00] research. Uh, according to some general statistics, there's about 2 million eye issues that are billed for, um, in ERs every year, uh, according to some, um, insurance statistics. So I knew it was out there, right?

But it was like, okay, what are we gonna find? Um, you know, what hours do people need? Um, and also just how do we support. The eye doctors, how do we support the locations to really make this as smooth as possible? And it's reasonable that a lot of eye doctors, you know, they're, you know, going as fast as they can, eight to five, to take care as many people as possible.

Um, and they, and they know these are out, these, um, after hours, patients are there, but they're hesitant because of just the extra admin. And you're not gonna be able to get a, [00:09:00] um, uh, an associate, not an associate, but a staff member to come in after hours and do the normal paperwork for you and all the other steps like booking the appointment, collecting the payments, is insurance involved.

There's so many more steps to seeing a patient as doctors we would love. It was just like, awesome. Let's show up. Do what we love to do, care for the people, and then go home. Right? And that's what urgent eye care we've created. Is that we will take on all of the admin. So the doctors just get to show up and be the doctor.

And then the practice that we partner with, um, also gets to benefit from the patients being seen there because then they get, um, you know, really separated from all the other practices in the clinic with aligning themselves with us because, well, they said to all the urgent cares and the ERs we're gonna take on those hard cases.

We're ready to go, we're [00:10:00] passionate about this. Um, whereas not all optometrists are, and there's nothing wrong with that. Um, they're more focused in glasses and contacts. So urgent cares and ERs don't exactly know, um, which clinics that they should maybe make a referral to outside of ophthalmologists. But as optometrists, we are really equipped, um, to, to on.

I would say over 90% of these eye care emergencies, or we're gonna get 'em connected to one of, you know, our trusted, um, you know, specialists in our areas that we partner with in all of our daytime locations. Um, so we're gonna get them connected with one of those specialists much quicker and efficiently than say the urgent care er.

Ankit Patel: Gotcha. Uh, interesting. And so I, I'm curious about, uh, so, so, uh, all the admin, all the work surrounding it. So you've kind of take, you've had that, that was kind of something you got fresh with and you kind of take that away as you grew your network out. Why

Brooks Wood: Absolutely.

Ankit Patel: Network? Why not just do [00:11:00] it in Dallas where you are locally?

Yeah.

Brooks Wood: I mean, we are truly passionate about people. You know, I tell this, I tell my team all the time. This is, they're, they're more eyes than just Dallas. Like, like the same problems here are happening all across the country. And, um, you know, I literally go to sleep at night thinking about how many people are in pain tonight, how many people are gonna show up at their eye doctor on Monday, and their eye doctor's gonna say the same thing I did, man, I wish I could have seen them sooner.

You know, and just kind of brushing off to, oh, well, you know, I'm doing my best. I'm so exhausted, I'm so tired. I don't think I can take on one more task. But we're not really saying, we don't think we can take on one more patient because we do that all the time. Right. We, we, we will squeeze people in all the time because, you know, in general, I believe optometrists are very heartfelt, warm, um, [00:12:00] compassionate people that.

Really already, but it's the admin and you know, taking the calls. Um, sometimes we get calls that are just like, Hey, I wanted to, you know, pick up my contacts, you know, and we're like, um, we don't do that, you know, um, whereas, and they go, oh wait, what is this? Right? Um, but we're like, oh, after hours submerged together.

Oh, I don't need that right now. But that's great. Um, whereas the private doctor who's just taking call on their own, they're gonna get all those weird calls that are just taking them away from their family. So we get to be that extra filter and really just keep them, um, in their sweet spot and taking care of people.

Ankit Patel: So, so let's, um, uh, let's focus a little bit more on your journey and like your challenges, because I think, uh, people love to hear the, the struggles that think like how you're thinking.

Brooks Wood: Yeah, absolutely.

Ankit Patel: Talk about, uh, challenges, and let, let's, let's scoot back a little bit and talk to me about some of the challenges you faced taking over your [00:13:00] father's practice that you didn't expect.

Brooks Wood: Absolutely. Yeah.

So understanding how to, how to keep your lights on, right? Like I could see people, I could diagnose, I could treat, I could refract, I could, you know, do all the contact lenses, but how do we get paid for all of this? Right? And, um, you know, he was moving so fast in his.

Um, patient care. Right. And it was mostly under the managers at that time, but I had no idea how to even help the managers when things were going wrong. Right. And they were looking to me as the business owner, and then I would talk to my dad and he is like, I haven't done that in a long time. Um, you know, and it was just kind of this great, I'm seeing patients, but I think we're falling short on the dollar [00:14:00] capture, which was ultimately capping how well we could take care of patients.

Because if you're not taking in money, you're not updating your equipment, you're not having the proper staff coverage that you need to run the test, to answer the phone, to make a good pair of glasses. Um, and, and so you can really weaken yourself. If you're not able to manage the managed care model that is, you know, in the United States.

Ankit Patel: So, uh, tell me a little bit about any kind of challenges or how are you facing the challenges of staffing, uh, and reimbursement issues at your office now?

Like, what specifically are you doing to try to combat that and, and work through that?

Brooks Wood: Absolutely. So focusing on efficiency, using that experimental growth mindset, um, things like Weave, weaves a big, uh, communication tool for us. Um, our EHR going from paper [00:15:00] to EHR. Um, the EHR that we chose is the finity cloud-based. I don't think any of them's perfect, but what I love about that one is integrated online scheduling.

So there's no double work. Some systems you had to take it. Um, you know, it wasn't really an actually booked appointment, it was more of an appointment request, and then they were putting data from one system into another, and that was just like points of error. So the fin EHR, and. EPM systems, um, are directly integrated and it's right on our website.

So we're booking patients at, you know, all hours of the night and weekend, uh, through that. Um, it helps, uh, you know, an insurance verification systems like TriZetto. Also on the billing side, uh, Trita as well too, largely pushed through that, um, from its integration as well with Affinity EPM. Um, but that can be both front end and [00:16:00] backend as well.

And once again, just getting that billing cycle, um, in there. Um, I feel like the, um, charting system of FIN EHR was pretty smooth as well too. Some doctors, they like to be more on a desktop, um, or staff as well. Um, others like it was very mobile friendly. As well too. We wanted to be able to move throughout the office.

We didn't necessarily want to be just like tied down, um, to to, to a certain point in the office. 'cause building a larger building is quite expensive now. And so how are we maximizing our space? We also went to a lot of handheld equipment. We have handheld auto refactors, handheld sonometers,

Ankit Patel: Oh,

Brooks Wood: you know, there's not a handheld opta map yet, but that would be awesome.

I'd be first in line, you know, so being able to take rooms that were once used for just admin and now we've turned 'em into revenue, uh, spaces [00:17:00] as well too. Um, with, with dry eye. Um, in the radio frequency IPL, um, we were able to integrate a dry eye space. Why? Because we were able to cut a whole pre a pre-testing room just by going mobile friendly, um, which was great for our wheelchair parent, uh, patients or aging patients.

Um, they're just a little bit less mobile and flexible. Um, the younger staff was able to, you know, still do testing and get good data. Um, maybe when people couldn't hold their head a certain way or, um, you know, their back was hurting, couldn't sit up straight. So those would be some of my, um, favorite adjustments that we made.

Ankit Patel: There's a lot of meat in what you just described.

Brooks Wood: Yeah.

Ankit Patel: Uh, I kind of wanna reflect back if I've heard

Brooks Wood: Yeah.

Ankit Patel: Properly. Um, so what I'm hearing is, so it sounds like there's kind of an underlining assumption of revenue per square foot.

Brooks Wood: Oh yeah.

Ankit Patel: and so it's like, Hey, how much more So you looked at not just the chair time, but you

Brooks Wood: Mm-hmm.

Ankit Patel: Foot as an

Brooks Wood: Right? Yep.

Ankit Patel: Let's [00:18:00] go mobile. So we have a mobile cart, so we have

Brooks Wood: Yeah

Ankit Patel: square footage to do more

Brooks Wood: Oh, yeah.

Ankit Patel: We can pack

Brooks Wood: Mm-hmm.

Ankit Patel: I, I haven't heard too many people looking at it that way.

Brooks Wood: Yeah. I, I, I, it's been a complete game changer because we just kept running into room space. Why can't we see more patients? Like the doctors are just sitting around, oh, well, because this patient was in this room at that time, and only that piece of equipment was over there. And I was like, okay, we gotta eliminate that.

And we did. And, and it's gone. Great. Um, yeah, so there's, I know there's a lot of headset, um, visual fields now, um, as well too. We'll probably be looking at one of those. Ours is, you know, still currently running and it, um, is not interfering with our current space, uh, right now, but that's probably the next one, uh, to go mobile as well too.

And I know a lot of doctors are really liking their, um, uh, vr, visual fields, color testing, all of that. So that's probably on the next one.

Ankit Patel: That's really cool. [00:19:00] Um, and, and I heard a lot of automation in there as

Brooks Wood: Yeah. Oh yeah,

Ankit Patel: like your software, so you

Brooks Wood: yeah.

Ankit Patel: Admin time, so

Brooks Wood: Oh yeah. I mean, copy and paste is your most powerful tool for your staff. Um, all like, a lot of communication templates for when their glasses are ready to, they need to stop retyping that out. It's way too slow. It should be copy, paste, send, like, if it's more than three clicks, it's too much.

Ankit Patel: Hmm.

Brooks Wood: You know? So that's, I mean, that saves hours of just that churn of, you know, and, and we even update when. Their glasses are in process, right? We're getting feedback from our labs and because if it's over a certain time, we found that patients start to get a, a little edgy. Um, and so we go, okay, you know, if, if this, we get this feedback saying it has to be redone for any reason we're sending this template out, right?

Um, giving patients a heads up or if something was delayed in their contact lenses. You know, we're monitoring [00:20:00] our, our, uh, partners like, uh, Marlowe and. Um, let's see, Johnson and Johnson, the, uh, shop app, you know, A, b, and B, all of those, right, those platforms. So if, if, um, you know, employee A, their job is monitoring this, if they see, you know, any type of error in the flow of getting the patient, their products, then okay, we need to be sending out this template, making sure they're, they're updated, not free texting, hoping that, you know, employee one is gonna say it as good as employee two, or the person who's been here 10 years is gonna say it as good as the person who's been here for two weeks.

Um, so all those things, um, really, really cut down. Um, just the churn of that day to day. And avoid employee burnout. That's a big thing too. Um, just making their lives as efficient as possible helps you retain employees, um, which cuts quite a bit of employee costs.

Ankit Patel: Yeah, that's,

Brooks Wood: that's a

Ankit Patel: that's a

Brooks Wood: really interesting,

Ankit Patel: I, I[00:21:00]

Brooks Wood: I.

Ankit Patel: A lot of what you said there. There's a lot of good insights there. So hopefully folks, um. I'll encourage folks to reach out to you after the podcast. We'll,

Brooks Wood: Yeah,

Ankit Patel: information if they have some quick,

Brooks Wood: absolutely.

Ankit Patel: I've never, I haven't really heard too many people talking about revenue per square foot

as sort Of like an under underlying metric to optimize.

So that was kind of cool. Um, let's, let's talk a little bit about what you're excited about in the future. So, uh, I, I wanna, I wanna talk to you a little bit more about what you're excited about the, the, uh, after hours network as

Brooks Wood: Yes.

Ankit Patel: Um, anything else you might be excited about. So let's start off with what

Brooks Wood: Yeah.

Ankit Patel: About in general for optometry, and then we can

Brooks Wood: Okay

Ankit Patel: you're excited about for yourself in the future.

Brooks Wood: Excellent. Yeah. Um, I would say the most excited I'm about, uh, I'm focused on right now is the anterior segment, ocular surface disease space. I feel like we've been so stuck in. Drops, drops. Drops. Right. Or pills, nasal sprays. Right. It was just this lifelong, you know, [00:22:00] diagnosis that there's no coming back from.

Right. And that is, I, I, I just see the patient's face, you know, downturn like, what? I'm gonna have to be this for the rest of my life. You know, they're thinking, oh, cool, you know, we're gonna get rid of this feeling and then, uh, it's gonna be gone. Right? Like a pink eye and like, no, this one's not going away.

Right. You're gonna be on this Restasis, this Xiidra, this qua really for the rest of your life. And if you come off of it, all that pain and those infections that were showing up for, they're all coming back. And, and that was just really, really heavy on the patient. But with. The breakthrough, I'll say in the anterior segment imaging and the IPL and the RF and everything that we're getting from that space, as long as, you know, their meibomian glands are intact, that we're able to reverse a lot of this in damage, um, that's happening to the ocular [00:23:00] surface and get that tear breakup time back up to where, you know, we may not take everything off, but, um, even eliminating a couple drops a day and getting it down to a more reasonable amount is, is just really lifting these people's burden, both financially, psychologically, having to travel with a whole Ziploc baggie of eyedrops.

And does this one have to be refrigerated? Is this one gonna go bad? And just hundreds of dollars that they're spending. Um, and we're really seeing that. So that's, um, from a, from a private practice standpoint and just as an optometry as a whole perspective, that is definitely what I'm most excited about.

Ankit Patel: That's cool. And what about yourself? What are you excited about for your growth?

Brooks Wood: Yeah.

Ankit Patel: Yeah, I, I, I don't wanna put words in your mouth, but, uh, yeah. Tell us what you're excited about,

Brooks Wood: Yeah.

Ankit Patel: You

Brooks Wood: I am, I, I'm personally excited, um, for just supporting Optometry as a whole on a, a national [00:24:00] scale, right. When building this network of urgent eye care, because Urgent eye care is not only supporting that after hours need that outside of the eight to five. Right. But what we're seeing also from Urgent Eye Care is that it is then building the practice.

So if someone comes in, you know, let's say they have a corneal ulcer. They were, you know, and the underlying problem was, is that their eyes were too dry. They should never have been in a monthly lens. And you know, their meibomian glands are dying. Well, you know, they're coming back, then they're gonna be lifelong patients because you literally save their eye from that corneal ulcer taking over over the weekend.

And two, then you're gonna be able to take care of the underlying problem. You're gonna be able to treat and save those meibomian glands and save that ocular surface. So the private practice is, is [00:25:00] gonna benefit from that. And then you're gonna refit them in a, uh, you know, a daily contact lens, which is gonna be much safer.

You're gonna be able to educate on them, right, uh, uh, uh, to them, right? Something that they're never gonna get. If they only are being seen in these weakened settings, right? They're gonna be like, whew, got my Vigamox and that problem went away so I'm healed and I'm fine. Right? Whereas if we're connecting them, uh, with a practice with an eye doctor that is going to treat the active problem, the underlying problem and set them up for future exce, uh, success as well too.

Um, that's really what I'm most excited about in elevating, um, optometrists in the medical community, and I really feel like the urgent eye care network does that.

Ankit Patel: That's great. And tell me a little bit about the model about that. So if a doctor's in, like how, how does a financial model work for, for the doctors and, you know, tell, tell us a little bit [00:26:00] about that. How, how basically how can the doctors listen to this help build their empires by using, are you doing something like this?

Brooks Wood: Absolutely. Um, so real easy to connect with me. Um, I'll just go ahead and give out my cell phone right now, if that's okay.

Ankit Patel: Yeah, we, we can put it in the show notes too, if you want. So.

Brooks Wood: Cool. Yeah, that'd be awesome.

Ankit Patel: Alright.

Brooks Wood: yeah, so my cell phone number is two one four six zero eight seven. Um, you can text me directly. You can email me. It's Brooks, B-R-O-O-K-S dot od@urgenteyecaretx.com.

Um, either way, uh, connect with me. I'd love to chat about, um, how we can, you know, bring this, uh, exciting, you know, really connection and service to your community, uh, to your practice. And it can really fit, um, any model of practice. It's really flexible. Um, so, you know, definitely reach out. But to answer your [00:27:00] question, um, so we're gonna pay the doctor who sees the patient a, um, very competitive rate.

Um, something that they're not gonna see from a managed care plan. Um, or, you know, most of the time cash pay either. Two, if they're, um, you know, if they're a, uh, clinic, right? We're gonna try to support the clinic as much as we can, um, with some of those disposables to avoid, you know, cost burden. And then we're going to, um, you know, a lot of times the patient that's seen, like I mentioned earlier, at the after hours visit is going to follow up, right?

So that follow up care is all that. Um, you know, doctor's practice is their patient. We're hands off completely from there, so we just touch 'em once and, um, there's, there's no buy-in, right? Um, there's no cost to, to bring us on. You could almost see us as like a free [00:28:00] triage service, a free marketing service.

All of our marketing is co-branded with the clinics that we partner with. Um, once again, just funneling patients back to your clinic. In your community going out, increasing the reputation, um, with your other medical and ER practices in the community? Um, so, you know, the, the practices sometimes, um, they're even getting patients during the day, right?

We have patients walk in to some of our clinics and just say, Hey, you know, Texas Health Breeze over there told us, told me that, you know, they couldn't help me, but that if I just came over here, you'd be able to help me. Right. And the normal clinic, we just work 'em in. Right. And urgent eye care doesn't take anything from that.

And that's how the private practices, um, I I say private practice, any modality, um, can, uh, can really receive, you know, free patient acquisition from just partnering with us.

Ankit Patel: Okay. Um. [00:29:00] And so, uh, if you can, I mean, I know it's hard to give exact financials, but like percentages, like how much have you

Brooks Wood: Yeah.

Ankit Patel: Practices grow, like relative to your business? Like, have you seen it grow? How much extra revenue have people seen by starting the services? Depending on, you know, what kind of locations usually work better, so people interested, this might be an avenue for them to grow their practices.

Brooks Wood: yeah, absolutely. So, um, our flagship location, and really we want every location to grow, um, to this amount. But so far this year, um, that flagship location has already seen over 400 patients, and about 50% of those, uh, patients were then a referral back to that clinic during the daytime for, you know, follow-up care or whatever the, the problem was.

So, um, whatever year, you know, annualized, you know, per patient revenue is, you know, 200 patients, um, for a cost of nothing for [00:30:00] that clinic to acquire them.

Ankit Patel: a revenue source, right? 'cause you're making money in the after hour care.

Brooks Wood: Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, um, you know, in, in the Dallas area. I would estimate, um, that to be around, uh, close to $10,000, um, additional, but that's just from that, uh, the follow-up care, that's not if they brought their family back for the routine.

Right. You know, you kind of start to annualize and project that out to five years, 10 years, um, routine exam, contacts, glasses, those kind of things. Yeah.

Ankit Patel: Well, it's, it sure beats, um, AdWords and marketing costs that

Brooks Wood: Oh yeah.

Ankit Patel: Gonna work. Right.

Brooks Wood: Right.

Ankit Patel: Which you probably get a return, but this is like, Hey, you're doing patient care and you're building

Brooks Wood: Yeah, absolutely.

Ankit Patel: Work. So, you know, there are some night and weekends.

Brooks Wood: Sure.

Ankit Patel: And

Brooks Wood: Yeah.

Ankit Patel: Gets to be a little tough.

So I'm guessing that they, you know, folks can reach out to you about this. Um, and I don't want this in a full transcript. This is not a sponsored ad or anything, so it's not a

Brooks Wood: Yeah.

Ankit Patel: Really super excited about your model,

Brooks Wood: I appreciate it. Thanks.

Ankit Patel: About it for ourselves too,

Brooks Wood: Yeah.

Ankit Patel: [00:31:00] Uh, because I think it's a really unique way for folks who aren't necessarily super business savvy that, that to build a practice for a few years at least.

So,

Brooks Wood: Oh yeah, absolutely.

Ankit Patel: Yeah. And, and so, uh, let's shift gears a little bit

Brooks Wood: Okay.

Ankit Patel: Brooks, so people can find out about you a little bit more, uh, about,

Brooks Wood: Okay.

Ankit Patel: Like who you are.

Brooks Wood: Yeah. Yeah.

Ankit Patel: The way you think is really cool and unique, you tell me a story that made you who you are? And it could have been anywhere in your life, but something that's really impactful to you.

Brooks Wood: I would say going on some mission trips when I was really young and they were iCare mission trips, um, before the southern border, you know, got really crazy with, uh, the cartel and everything. Um, we would go across the border, take a lot of donating glasses and, and go to some other underserved, uh, communities, right?

And just to see how much life happens through people's eyes. [00:32:00] Right. Um, and even before, you know, screens took over, I, I think that's overly obvious now that we're all on screens, but even before that, some of these people, they couldn't work. Right. Um, and they couldn't, um, you know, really be the parents or, you know, educationally advance themselves just 'cause they couldn't see.

And for my eight, nine, 10-year-old self that was, you know, living in Dallas, that was just, pardon the pun, eye opening. And it's always made me very grateful for the vision that I have, the vision that I can help other people have and just deliver that instantaneous care. And I think that's where, you know, I've always been the bring, bring the eyecare to the people.

Right. Just like my dad was, you know, in another country. Um, like we need to do that here too, right? [00:33:00] There's a gap in care. Like there's lots of gaps in cares, you know, but unfortunately I can't travel around the world all the time. But you know, if each and every one of us is doing the, as much as we can in our communities, right?

And, um, very passionate about private practice, but I just felt limited. I felt like I could, I could give more. And that's why I'm so passionate, um, about private practice in serving my local community, but also urgent eye care in helping other doctors, um, because I feel like each doctor truly does have a passion for their community and just supporting people.

To be able to make that happen. Right? We all need more. We all need more on our team, right? And, um, you know, not charging and just creating no barrier for the doctor to be able to come on board. I, [00:34:00] I don't wanna be another salesperson going, oh yeah, just pay me that extra fee every month. Um, I didn't want to take, um, just wanted to give, I just wanna build and, um, keep bringing eyecare to as many people as I can possibly impact, um, in my life that I've been seeing, you know, since I was eight years old.

Ankit Patel: That's pretty, that's a pretty cool

Brooks Wood: Great. Thanks.

Ankit Patel: I, I love how you, you you kind of, there seems to be this ethos of what can I do with what I have under my control

Brooks Wood: Yeah, absolutely.

Ankit Patel: Yeah. That's really cool.

Brooks Wood: Yeah.

Ankit Patel: Uh, so what advice would you give to your younger self as a fresh new grad out of OD school?

Brooks Wood: I would say get. As much medical eyecare experience as you can. Um, coming out of optometry school, uh, even just kind of pulling my 106 classmates, you know, down from the University of [00:35:00] Houston, their college of optometry, we all had very different clinical, um, experiences, right? It was just kind of the luck of the draw.

What patients did you get that day or what, um, you know, we got to choose our clinics here and there. Um, but not everybody got to go to the, uh, you know, the medical, um, rotation or got to go to the specialty contact lens rotation. But I would say in general, the more medical eyecare experience that you can get right off the bat, that's just gonna alleviate a lot of fear from getting sued, right?

We're all like, oh my gosh, I just got this license. How do I not lose it? Get connected, whether it's with a practice, um, that has an experienced eye doctor that you know you're gonna be in the same room with, who can truly just walk on over to your room and go, okay, yeah, that is what it [00:36:00] is. Give you the confidence to prescribe the right thing.

Or you can step out of the room and go, Hey, I think I'm seeing this. Have you seen this or view that opta map? That was huge for me. Um, if I went into, uh, uh, uh, any kind of practice setting where I was by myself, I would've just totally pulled away from it. But, um, uh, having two experienced doctors in, in my practice that I started out in with that medical background really empowered me.

And then also actually doing urgent eye care of just getting that direct injection and repetition of. Being able to see those medical patients. Um, now I'm very comfortable with it and I'm, and I'm helping coaching younger doctors, um, do the same thing. So I do sit as the, uh, medical director for urgent eye care, and all the doctors have my number.

So if anything is crazy, you know, walking through the [00:37:00] door, I'll pick up the phone at any hour of the night or weekend and support them because that's where I was, you know, and I, and I want to be there and help other people get through that, maybe more smoothly than, uh, and less anxiety than I had at first.

Ankit Patel: Oh, that's

Brooks Wood: That's amazing.

Ankit Patel: And

Brooks Wood: And

Ankit Patel: so,

Brooks Wood: so, so would you recommend

Ankit Patel: and this may be outside the scope, would you have recommended to yourself a a disease residency?

Brooks Wood: Yeah, if, uh, I would say the residencies were. Pretty small few and far between when I was, when I was coming out, so, yeah, absolutely. I I I think that would be great. If you're not getting the experience from the clinics that you did in your normal clinical rotations, then absolutely. Yeah, I think that's a, I think that's a no-brainer because there's nothing better than being hands-on and doing it in a, uh, environment that you're gonna have someone right there ready to help [00:38:00] you.

Ankit Patel: Yeah, that's, that's, um, uh, I think that's really good insights. Like, Hey, get good, get good at your craft

Brooks Wood: oh yeah,

Ankit Patel: Yeah.

Brooks Wood: absolutely. Yeah. Soft contact lenses, um, you know, hard to get sued from glasses, hard to get sued from, um, you know, specialty contact lenses. I'll say the same thing as well to binocular vision. Really hard to get sued from. Um, but the medical side of things, I still feel like, and, and I not just feel like I actually see that a lot of optometrists are sending out to ophthalmology to where if they had those partnerships with eye doctors, optometrists that were comfortable, the ophthalmologists are too busy to, to coach, right.

Um, if you're gonna work with them, you, you better be on the ball. Right? They're not waiting for anyone. They've got 80 patients to see. Um, but we even have some optometrists, they'll. Refer to [00:39:00] urgent eye care, right. If there's a, um, you know, foreign body that they don't feel comfortable, um, taking out, they'll say, Hey, go see, you know, urgent eye care.

We don't really do this. Mostly glasses in context and that, and that's fine. You know what I mean? And it's not for everyone. We understand that it's not for everyone. Um, but just to kind of get that anxiety, get that monkey off your back, I would just say get as much, uh, medical eye experience because the people, the, the aging population right, were, were, is really needed.

Um, really needed care. And the ophthalmologist, their numbers are not going up.

Ankit Patel: Yeah.

Brooks Wood: The optometrist numbers are going up and so our communities are gonna be looking to us to, um, take care of them.

Ankit Patel: Yeah. And a lot of, a lot of, um, states are expand, expanding scope

Brooks Wood: Yeah. Which is exciting.

Ankit Patel: Yeah

Brooks Wood: it's really exciting. It.

Ankit Patel: Well, Brooks, where can, um, I'll ask again, uh, where can people, uh, if reach out to you, um, and where are you [00:40:00] most active as well, online? So let's start off with where people can reach you.

Brooks Wood: Yeah, absolutely. So, um, you can, uh, text my personal cell phone or call me (214) 605-0876. Email me, uh, brooks dot od@urgenticaretx.com. And I'm also on LinkedIn, uh, Facebook, um, all of those avenues. Um, you can definitely reach me even through, um, urgent eyecare, uh, tx.com. You, there's a, uh, form submission if you wanna fill that out as well too.

That will get to me. Um, so pretty well connected there.

Ankit Patel: Awesome. Well, Brooks, it's been a good conversation. I really enjoyed learning about your business model.

Brooks Wood: Thank you.

Ankit Patel: Again, uh, Dr. Uh, Brooks Wood for being on the podcast.

Brooks Wood: Appreciate it. No, thank you. And um, really look forward to just continuing to connect with your network as well too. We've really enjoyed, um, keeping up with [00:41:00] your podcast

Ankit Patel: Well thank you for that. And thank you audience. If you learn something or laughed, share the podcast with the YouTube channel with a friend and make sure you hit the subscribe button so you never miss an episode, whether it's on YouTube or on the podcast format. if you see, uh, the HubSpot link in the show notes to book a meeting, I'll send you a free copy of my book, which is called Optometry Redefined. thank you again, uh, Brooks, for being on the show. This has been another exciting episode of Optometrist Building Empires. We'll see you next time.

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