Elkton Eyecare - Starting Up

Here are some pictures of the new waiting room after painting it and redecorating it our first month in the old building.







Before we even moved out to Elkton I had Nancy start calling all the over-due patients. This was a great thing because before I even opened I had around 15 people on the books for the first couple of weeks.

We got here on the 4th or 5th of August, I started cleaning up and getting things arranged how I wanted it and on the 10th I started seeing my first patients. At that point I wasn't taking any insurance. I was in the process of getting on Medicare, but I knew that wasn't going to be ready for another month or so. So, even though I was seeing 2-5 people a day that first month almost all of them were medicare patients. Luckily, almost every person I saw needed glasses and chose to purchase them at my practice! That and the fact that we had very few expenses accounted for a pretty good first month, which resulted in a lot of optimism for the coming months.

Ruth and Lois painted the new waiting room (which was Dr. Downey's old exam room). We got a lot of the new furniture at Ikea, the two gray chairs came from West Elm, and the rest just came from around Dr. Downey's building. We thought it turned out really well.

September wasn't too bad, but not as good as August, mainly because we now had bills to pay. Dr. Downey was very kind and allowed us to use his office for free with no commitment on our part for the first three months! That helped a lot!

The auto-refractor that Dr. Downey had in his office died around the first of October. So ever since it's been all retinoscopy. I have to say, in lots of ways it's faster to do that than sit them down in some other room and have somebody else do an auto refraction.

Towards the end of September and going into October the patients noticeably slowed down. By mid October I was really getting ready to find a new (more updated) location that was on a first floor. It was frustrating having patients call and say "are you still up all those stairs?"...or...people would call and say "I just walked in the door and saw all those stairs and I'll have to cancel my apt." Anyway, I'm sure I could have stuck it out and stayed in that 2nd floor office, but getting in a different location seems like a better option all around.

By the end of October I had 2 or 3 options and all were pretty good. We eventually decided with this place:


There is a local guy that does car detailing for his business but does signs on the side. I had him make me 3 signs (one on each side of the building and one to put on that white banister in front of the white door). He gave me a great deal and even threw in a free sign or plaque for my front door. We moved the first week in November.

October inspired me to look for a part-time job. I was blessed to find one so quickly. I go down to Waynesboro to work at the Walmart vision center Wednesday afternoons (1-6) and Saturday's (9-3). It is a good 45-50 minute drive, but they basically let me set those hours and they pay me fairly well.

I really like our new location but now we're paying rent, utilities are more (gas furnace as apposed to space heaters) and pt numbers are even lower.....and we didn't break even for the first time since opening. By the second week in December I think we were at an all-time low for patient numbers.

I was told that December would be bad, so I counted on that, but the last two weeks of December were my best ones since opening! Since then it has stayed pretty steady and even increased some the last week in Jan and first week in Feb of this year!

In October and November I was lucky to see 8-10 patients a week! The last week in Jan I saw 18! The first week in Feb I saw 15 in only 3 days (since we took Thursday and Friday off to go up to the temple and see Ruth's sister Lois).

In Nov we started paying for Dr. Downey's equipment and frame inventory (plus some odds and ends - mostly furniture). Our contract says we have 3 years to pay it off. With the help of our Walmart job and and our tax return we hope to pay it off a lot sooner than that.

Some little tid-bits:

I noticed that my Verizon bill was higher than I thought it should be. I was looking it over and there was something on there for $49 a month that I didn't understand. I called them up and they said "Yes, that is supposed to be free for the first 6 months and then you can cancel it." I told them I had never heard of it and that I wanted them to cancel it and refund me all the past months they had charged me. They said they would and they looked into it and there was another thing (like around $20/month) that they had been charging me that they weren't supposed to that they took off as well. So, that was nice to get that bill cut down a little bit.

I got my first medicare check in mid October. I moved the first week in November. The checks were being direct deposited into my bank account regularly after that. Then mid December they just stopped and didn't start again until the end of January just because I had moved and it took them that long to "update my address" in their system even though my bank account didn't change!! Oh well.

I've changed my fee schedule a couple of times since we opened and in lots of ways it's been good that we weren't totally busy from the beginning. It's going to take a while to get things running as smoothly as possible.

Stay tuned for the following:
1. Elkton Eyecare paying its doctor his first check.
2. Elkton Eyecare paying off Dr. Downey.
3. Elkton Eyecare getting an Eletronic Medical Record.

Elkton Eyecare, Part One

I've always wanted to own my own business. In fact, I think that's one of the things that attracted me to optometry in the first place. My father had his own business and the thought of working my way up the corperate latter, possibly changing jobs every 5-10 years, and ultimately not being able to do my own thing didn't appeal to me. So, I discarded my plans to be a chemical engineer and pursued optometry from day one of college (which decision was reaffirmed to me as I struggled through my organic chemistry classes).

Now the way in which I was to obtain my own business was not clear, but as we began optometry school we took the recommendation of a certain neighbor to start listening to a radio program that in large measure would change our financial leanings and ultimately my core business philosophy. That radio program was none other than Dave Ramsey.

We had already been seriously pursuing a military scholarship to pay for school. Iraq was not going away and troops were starting to go to Afghanistan. It looked more and more likely that I would be deployed if I joined. Nevertheless, when doubts set in weather we really wanted to do it or not, acquiring as little debt as possible and a lot of prayer really gave us that extra courage to go for it.

Our time in the Army was wonderful, and professionally it was just what I needed. I was busy seeing patients from day one and always had an optometrist and an ophthalmologist just down the hall if I ever needed a second opinion. I really enjoyed my time in the military, but I knew that it wasn't what I wanted long term.

The Army was great, but ultimately Ruth and I wanted to own our own business and find a community where we could settle down and stay for the rest of our lives. Since my profession allows me to work in any community where the people have eyes, it became a challenge to find a place to which we both wanted to move. Our desire to make this move a one-time deal made it even harder to know which place would be best.

I researched just about every place imaginable and had lengthy conversations with Ruth about the pros and cons of many of them. Ultimately, we felt drawn to the Shenandoah Valley area via fasting and prayer. After driving through both Charlottesville and Waynesboro we decided we liked Waynesboro better.

Due to the fact that I wanted a debt-free business, I knew that I would need to work for somebody before I would be able to buy into a practice, and/or buy/start my own. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a doctor in Waynesboro that was in a position to hire an associate. Nevertheless, I did meet a doctor that would lead us to the opportunity we really wanted, but had written off as improbable considering our desire to not borrow any money to start up a business.

Dr. Leeth of Waynesboro told us of a Dr. Downey in Elkton VA that had retired and closed his doors the year before. Elkton was a very small town just 30 minutes north of Waynesboro. I didn't call him right away, again, because I wasn't in a possition financially to buy a practice. As time drew nearer, and the few job opportunities we had were not looking like what we wanted, I decided to give Dr. Downey a call. The rest, as they say, is history. Turns out his business had been closed for close to 2 years and he had all but given up hope of finding another doctor to come in and buy the business. When I called, all he wanted was somebody to buy the actual assets (equipment, frames, and furniture). This was something we could manage, and what we couldn't, we would pay him over a set period of time.

In May of 2011 we started making preparations. I got a lawyer and had an LLC registered with the Commonwealth of Virginia and established as Elkton Eyecare LLC. We enlisted the help of our brother-in-law Mike Erekson to design a website and Jeff Heit to design a logo. Both the website and the logo can been seen here: www.elktoneyecare.com

By June I was starting to shop for and buy some essential equipment that I knew Dr. Downey either didn't have, or was so out of date it was obsolete. The main ones being an non-contact tonometer, Goldmann applanation tonometer, slit lamp, and a more modern phoroptor. As time got closer and money got spent, I decided to forgo a new phoroptor and hoped I'd learn how to use the old one. I started to design ads for the paper and flyers (mailers), and of course got started with my Medicare application. I had made the decision to not take any vision plans, but I did want to take Medicare and some other major medical plans (BCBS, UHC, etc).

I contacted his last two employees and enlisted them to work for me. Luckily they were both still available and excited to come back. Sounds pretty good so far right? Well, the down side was the practice was old. I mean, REALLY old. The building the office is in is very old, and the decor has not been updated in more than 30 years. Most of the equipment is obsolete and most if it has not been updated in 20 years. To top it all off, the office was on the second floor. Oh yeah, one more good thing, and it's a deal-maker, this was the only optometry office in the area and served more than 15,000-20,000 people spread out over several small towns! The closest eye doctors were in Harrisonburg, just over 20 minutes away. Unfortunately, that is also where we would be going to church, so that was a little disappointing. We decided we'd make up for it by living close to work and school (which wouldn't be hard since the office and the elementary school were less than half a mile away from each other).

To complicate things, a nice practice in Harrisonburg called me up and wanted an interview. I met with them and they wanted to hire me (part time for 6 months then full time after that). It seemed like a great opportunity to try both places out. In the end, however, the larger practice wasn't willing to have me work at their place AND in Elkton as they felt it was in their "compete zone". Another tough decision...well, it seemed like it at the time. They were offering me a very generous pay, but the drawback would be working on Saturdays, commuting to the practice's various locations, and poor hours. At the time, anything with a "generous" salary seemed better than the unknown of Elkton Eyecare. After of few days of thinking about it and several long discussions with Ruth, we decided that what we really wanted was to be close to work, have our own place, and no weekend hours...all with the intent, or purpose of having more family time.

As time got nearer for us to move, we found ourselves without a place to live. Two places we had thought about turned out to be "below standard" and one that we did like (a lot) was above budget. We tried to make a deal with the landlord (which he did consider) but he did not accept. With just under a week to go, we called him back and said we'd take his original offer, but unfortunately it had been rented. The weekend before we moved Ruth found a house online that had been for sale, but recently put up for rent. It was pretty good and at a fair price so we went for it. Turns out there were several people wanting it so we had to submit an application and wait until Sunday night to hear if we were going to be able to get it or not.

We got it.

Monday and Tuesday we packed up and cleaned and on Wednesday we drove away. It was definitely a sad day to leave our home and all our wonderful friends at Fort Leonard Wood.

Friday morning we arrived in Elkton VA. I went to the bank and opened up a business account and went to the office to meet with a frame rep. Later that evening we were blessed to have 3-4 brothers from the church come by to help us unpack. We got it all done in just an hour to two, including our mammoth piano. I think we'll try and sell it before we have to move again.

Stay tuned for my next post - "Starting Up".

Here's a few pictures of the place when we first saw it in May. It had been closed down for 18 months at that point.


Front of building - we are on the second floor.


Optical


Exam lane - has become the new waiting room...pictures to follow!!


Exam lane #2 - this would become my lane.

P.S. - now we're looking at a different location, so in the end, we may not even stay in this building. Again, more to follow.

Filling in

Ruth is out west for her Grandma Lena's funeral. She took Elden with her, and I'm home with the other four. So far so good, but this morning I realizied I had to get the girls hair done (which Ruth usually does).

Here are the results. The pictures aren't that great, but then again, neither is their hair. :)

For Example...

So lately, every time I try and beat around the bush, or dumb-down a topic or conversation with the kids, Clark is never satisfied (like any 7 year old) and says, "so...for example??"

It's pretty funny, but it totally works because I find myself explaining to him what I had hoped to not go into.

Clark, the Lego Master

I've always thought that Clark was good with Legos, but now that Cal is getting older and liking them just as much as Clark did at that age, it's clear that Clark has a gift for visual perception, symmetry, math, and building. Cal seems about average with them. He'll play with them and slightly modify certain things (like I used to do), but unlike Clark, neither he or I could just sit down with a bucket of Legos and create something at the level Clark does.

I'll try and post some photos of things he comes up with. Pretty cool.

Clark's Consternation

On the way to Church Clark is singing We Wish You a Merry Christmas. He's having a hard time singing the "Bring us some Figgy pudding" part. Cal capitalizes on this and starts to sing off-beat and the wrong words while Clark is trying so hard to sing it right and remember the works.

Finally Clark is fed up and says, "Cal! Stop singing, you're messing up my consternation!"

Well, he didn't exactly say consternation, but it was some word that was 90% consternation and 10% concentration.

Poor Clark - I think he finally got it, but we'll have to concentrate on saying words properly. ;)

Scooby Doo!

A conversation/song heard in the back row while driving in the van:

Haley: Scooby, Scooby Doo, where are you? You've got some work to do now (sung almost perfectly).

Shanna: Scooby, Scooby Doo, where are you? [something something something] (not that close - close enough you can tell what she's singing, but obviously wrong).

Haley: No, not like that, like this (and she sings it again).

Shanna: Oh, like this? (and she sings it wrong again).

Haley: NO Shanna! Like this: (she sings it perfectly).

Shanna: Like this? (and she sings the the same way she's been singing it).

This goes on for about 5-6 times when Shanna finally says: I can't do it Haley.

Shanna

Shanna has to have the strongest abs out of all the kids. They like to play this game where I hold them upside-down by their ankles with their face pointing forwards (or the same direction as mine) and they swing back and forth. Shanna started it and she can do a sit-up (with a little help from momentum) all the way past parallel to the ground!...so parallel to the ground and then up a little more.

All the other kids (well, except for Clark b/c I can't hold him high enough by his ankles to keep him from hitting his head on the ground) like to swing too, but none of them can really do it without my help like Shanna can.

Thanks Ebay!

Many of you many know that I worked in a bike shop as a teenager. From age 14 to 15 I spent pretty much all my spending money (40% of my income) on building a bike. Most of that bike is the bike I still ride today. One of the first things I bought was the crank. Like the rest of the bike parts I bought, I spared no expense. It was a Grafton Joystix, anodized blue. It has some typical shimano chainrings on it and some really nice SRP chainring bolts (5 aluminum and 5 titanium).

Three weeks ago when we went out to Nevada I found this crank in my parent's garage. It also had two titanium bottom bracket bolts in the box with it. I brought it home with the intentions of maybe putting it back on my bike someday or maybe selling on ebay. Well, I didn't really want to sell it on ebay b/c I didn't think it would bring more than 20-30 dollars. I probably spent around $250 for it to begin with and that was wholesale and once bike parts get to be over 5-10 years old they become obsolete.

Well, about 2 weeks ago I looked on ebay to see if there were any already for sale and there was! It was selling for $78.00! And, I thought mine was nicer than the one up for bid. I figured then was a good time to put it up.

I put it up for 10 days, and by 5 days out it was already up to $100. When there was just one day left it was $220! I ended Thursday night and Ruth and I watched in amazement as it went from $220 to $441.00!! After seeing that first one on ebay for $78, I only hoped mine went at least that high, maybe up to $100 if we were lucky. A nice man in England bought it. Apparently there is a high demand for these cranks, especially in Europe (I had two bidders from England one from Span, and one from Germany).

Here are some pictures of the famed crank:

October 10th, 2010

Here's a journal entry from our trip out west.

We just got back home from our trip out west. We drove to Colorado Springs the first day and stayed with Keith and Julienne. Our kids had a good time playing with their kids and their dogs. After dinner they got Jarret's old Legos out and Clark and Cal had a blast with those.

Day two we drove to St. George and stayed with Kent and Cindy (Ruth's cousins). We first went to Sam's hotel and watched the BYU game. They lost to Utah State, which was sad, but I was just so glad that I got to actually watch one of their games. Of course it turns out we could have watched the game at Kent and Cindy's house, but we didn't know and we knew that we could for sure watch it at Sam's hotel room. During the game, Ruth and the girls went shopping. They were gone almost the whole game.

The next day was the Lena Bartholomew reunion. It was her 90th birthday. The kids had fun playing with their cousins and playing the other games they had there - plus they had really good food.

After the reunion we got back in the car and headed to Ely. We were able to listen to the entire Saturday afternoon session on the radio on the way there. We got there just in time for me to change my clothes and attend the Priesthood session with my Dad. It was very good. I especially liked President Uchtdorf's talk on Pride.

Sue and most her kids (Alan had to stay at home with Joseph) were in Ely as well and our kids had a good time playing together and it was really nice to see Sue.

Sunday we stayed home and watched conference. The kids did pretty good (it helped that we had candy to reward good behavior). Between sessions Kent and his family came over for dinner. After that afternoon session we all went over to his house for a light meal and pie that Nathan had made (so good!).

Monday morning I went on a bike ride with Kent (I rode his Hammer Head). It was cool out, but in no time I wasn't cold at all. The trails that Dad worked on and created look great and it was a really great ride. We ended up going again the next morning as well. After the ride and getting ready we met Nathan at the railroad museum and he showed us all around. I think we even saw some things I'd never seen before. After that we went down to the office basement and got a lot of my old things that I wanted. That afternoon I took Ruth, Clark, and Shanna on a motor cycle ride. Clark loved it and wanted to go again and again. I was only able to take him twice as it was getting colder and starting to rain.

Tuesday we drove to Salt Lake City and walked around Temple Square. Then we went to Provo where we were going to stay with Stephanie and Andy. While there we took them out to eat at the BYU Creamery, walked around campus (twice) let the kids watch tons of movies, played Creationary (a new Lego game), got the van "fixed", and had all my nephews and nieces over for dinner that live in the area.

A little on the van. We replaced a wheel bearing after our trip to Sam's wedding last month. Well, the other side started to make noise just before our trip out west. Jeremiah Schaffer said he'd help me fix it so I ordered the part from Autozone. When we got it all apart the bearing I bought didn't match the one in the hub! So we put it all back together and when I turned on the car the ABS and traction control lights were on! We took it to Sanman to have it fixed the next day (the day before we had to leave) and they couldn't get a part in time to fix it before we left. We found a recommend place in Orem Utah to fix the bearing and when we took it there they said the bearing wasn't really bad enough to warrant fixing yet; however, they did say that the motor mounts were really bad, and it turns out the ABS light was on because we messed something up when we tried to fix the bearing ourselves before the trip. We're not sure yet what's wrong, but we'll probably need to take it to the dealer to figure it out. They put a different (used) sensor on there and the light was still one. Could be that the used sensor was bad too (cheaper to fix) or that the used sensor (and my original one) are good and we pulled on a wire and shorted it out (more money).

Well, Thursday morning we left Provo and drove to Denver Colorado to stay with Sam and Shawna. They have a nice condo there and they fed us a really yummy dinner with dessert. Then Clark and Cal had a great time playing Lego Star Wars on the Wii. Then we all watched Beauty and the Beast. Clark wasn't too happy about turning off the Wii, but after watching it for a few minutes he really liked it.

We left really early the next day and got home around 9:30 last night. It was a great trip and we were so glad we got to see so much of our family.

Saving Freedom

"Dependence [on the government] undermines the concept of government for the people, because it makes government the master of the people."

Jim DeMint, from Saving Freedom

I've been reading this book. Very good!

I also recommend 5000 Year Leap by Skousen. If you're under the age of 70 it is likely you haven't experienced the governing of this great country the way it was intended by our founders. Please read these books and educate your self so that we can let our government know how we the people want it to work.