Doctor Spotlight: Cosmo Salibello, O.D.

Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside of them was superior to circumstance. Those anonymous words recently came to my attention. I began to wonder if I could claim that, at any time in my life, I had achieved something splendid. Well, I did graduate from Pacific University College of Optometry. That was OK. I have been practicing for over 25 years. That was OK. And I did develop the PRIO System to prescribe computer eyewear. That was OK.

But to get "splendid", I had to go back to December 2006 and the Walmart OBA National Meeting in Dallas, Texas. The splendid thing that was presented there was none of my doing, however. It came from the wisdom, insight and creative vision of everyone on the Health and Wellness Team. I found myself enveloped in the splendid idea of Best Patient Experience! I learned that BPE was a service goal that would be supported by six pillars. I learned that one of those pillars was Best Doctors. I certainly learned the other five, but I could control Best Doctors (making myself one) and then I would define how to work within the structure that controlled the others. I also had it nudged into my brain by Drs. Gary Gerber and Neil Gailmard that to be Best Doctors, we had to rethink our practice strategies. The first step to Best Doctor level was to separate our practices from the image of Walmart. "Brand your practices", they advised. Find a name and a logo that works for you. Develop a Web site; be findable online; let your community know you are there and are ready to serve everyone's eye care needs. I returned from that meeting as much excited as I was totally confused. How do I get started? How much should I invest? What name? What logo? If I get a Web site, how do I get it high on the search engines (a process called search-engine optimization), so people can find me? Help!

A year passed as I thought about it and thought about it. I began to feel a little bit like Alice trying to reason with the Mad Hatter. And the Cheshire Cat was broadly smiling in the background. Then, in January 2008, a bit of serendipitous magic landed on me with a thud. At a Chamber of Commerce AM Meeting, I met Michael Stewart. He is a consultant for branding and imaging businesses. We started working together. Out of that meeting came a name for my practice (Optimeyes has served me well in the past 15 months), a design for pull-up banners, which the store manager eagerly put on display, and a promotional campaign to reach the greater community through a Chamber publication. I did not spend a lot of money, but I sure did get a good bang for my buck. 2008 showed growth of 5% to 6% over 2007. 2009 so far has 7% growth over 2008, even in this down economy. In my mind, the effort and investment were well worth the energy expended.

Did you know that all of the revenues from the affiliated doctor and from the Vision Center go straight to the store's bottom line? That fact should make it easier for you to develop a business relationship with your store manager. I think that what we doctors and the store managers can do for each other presents a natural setting for working together. Everyone wins!

How would you answer this question: What two things did we learn in optometry school that constantly get in our way as we try to develop successful practices? I would answer this way: (a) advertising or marketing for our practices is bad, bad, bad and (b) where we practice is directly proportional to how we practice.  From my Dallas experience, I knew that marketing was both not bad and absolutely critical to building community awareness and patient flow. And I was convinced that I could run patient-care rings around my stand-alone colleagues while practicing in affiliation with the world's largest retailer. After all, who was it that created the concept of Best Patient Experience?

Here's another question: What necessary trait do doctors in our circumstance tend to lack, which all too often holds us back from achieving our true potential? I would argue it is a good feeling about our qualifications and our place in the health care spectrum. How many of us, because we hold the idea of having our own office as a practice panacea, treat our affiliated doctor-partner status as "less than"? How many of us never develop a true Pride of Practice? And how many of us believe that we don't deserve to tell all of America that for best eye care (BPE), consumers need look no further than the nearest Walmart or Sam's Club Vision Center and affiliated Doctor of Optometry?

As I looked at the trait question and the pride of practice issue and the goal of telling America about us, I again took the lessons of Dallas and broadened their scope. I asked myself if national branding could put our whole organization on the map through the Internet. Sure, I could brand my own practice and publish my own Web site, but how about doing that and more for all the approximately 3000 affiliated optometrists in the nationwide Walmart/Sam's Club system!

So, Michael Stewart and I created the Eye Care Professionals Group and the Web site, www.besteyecare4u.com. The goal was to bring all the things I learned in Dallas, about showing ourselves as Best Doctors, together in one place where literally all of America could find our offices online, could request appointments online, could fill out forms online, could provide insurance information online, could drive a Dodge Viper from their houses to our offices online (every site needs a little fun), could learn about frames and contact lenses and solutions online, could read FAQs and a vision glossary online and could get to know each doctor-member through pictures, bio info and sound bites online before making the appointment. And there is a BLOG/Forum section that is password protected for doctor-members only where we can mentor, support and encourage each other. And as membership grows, we will have a communication tool with America of which we can be justly proud. So, if you have received the mailings about the Eye Care Professionals Group and haven't visited the site yet, I would invite you to give it a test drive. If you have not received a mailing, the invitation is open for you to get to know what is available for your practice. 

So, can we think ourselves superior to circumstance and achieve something splendid as Walmart/Sam's Club affiliated doctor-partners? Can we let America know that Best Value, Best Quality and Best Patient Experience all go hand in hand within our practices? Can we set a new standard for eye care within the outreach of the Health and Wellness Division of Walmart? 

I think so. After all, we are Best Doctors!