In 2019, you are one call to Legal Zoom away from having your business up and running in weeks, but the story of VisionAmerica is a bit more complicated than that. In March of 1984, a group of Alabama optometrists gathered together and began casting a vision for what their profession could be in this state. Almost 35 years later, it's easy to wonder if that group of optometrists could have possibly imagined that they were laying the foundations for an organization that would forever change optometry in the state. It wasn't necessarily a quick process. From their initial meeting in March of 1984, it would take five years for this group to see their plan come to fruition. But to truly understand the story behind VisionAmerica, it is best to take the advice of motivational speaker and organizational consultant Simon Sinek and "start with why."
And if you want the facts of any great story, you have to find the source. As we all know, the authority on all things VisionAmerica is Dr. Jim Marbourg. "This concept came into being was because, historically, we would send our patients off to ophthalmologists for care for cataracts, etc. and, in many cases, we never saw them again," recalled Marbourg. "In enough cases, we didn't see their families again, either. They were captured by the practice to which we referred." While the patient churn was certainly a concern for practices, the lack of continuity of care and negative effects it caused for the patient were the primary concern. Solving this problem became the group's primary goal. "We met for four years and planned on paper some of the core principles that we still have today," said Marbourg. "If we were going to do anything, we wanted it to be good for as many people as possible with our number one goal being providing the best patient care." The four initial core principles this concept would be built around were:
"We decided to explore the possibility of putting together a referral center similar to what existed in a couple of other areas of the United States, particularly in Atlanta, Georgia, but we didn't really want to own it," continued Marbourg. "We wanted it to be owned by a neutral entity. Our goal was really to bring the two professions, optometry and ophthalmology, together to where they worked with one another." In the latter months of 1988, the group chose Omega Health Systems to manage the referral center and in July of 1989, the Omega Eye Care Center (OECC) was opened in the Byrd Corporate Building in Birmingham, Alabama, at the intersection of Highway 31 and Highway 280 in Homewood. "We worked closely with Omega and during that process developed a few key points that are still important today for the success of the company," noted Marbourg. "The first was that an optometrist would serve within the office and act as a traffic cop, communicator, and coordinator for our patients. We wanted to have a colleague we could communicate with and who would deal with that patient's care. "The other important thing was that Omega liked the core group we had put together to bring this concept to life. They referred to it as our 'formation group' and advised us to pair it down and create an advisory board, so we did," continued Marbourg. "The fact that the advisory board was made up of five individuals who were also part of the birth of the company gave us the desire to make sure this thing was a success. That's why we had and still have members that were part of the initial formation group on the board. That initial advisory board had the 'fire in the belly' to make sure our dreams of having a center would succeed." That first advisory board was comprised of Marbourg, Dr. Jim McClendon, Dr. Fred Wallace, Dr. Tommy Crooks, and Dr. Larry Alexander from UAB. Together, they would serve as a voice for optometrists throughout the state. With the board formed, the next key piece to building the referral center was finding a surgeon willing to come on board and serve the patients who would be sent over. That proved to be a challenge as the group approached five surgeons in the state who all declined for various reasons. We hope you enjoyed part one of this interview with Dr. Jim Mabroug. Part two will be sent out next week!
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AuthorThe staff and doctors at VisionAmerica are committed to providing relevant information for you, your patients and your practice. We hope you find the information in our blog post helpful. Archives
August 2019
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