Announcement: Compensation Survey

This episode is to announce that Mandy Cansler Consulting and I are launching a free, multi-phase ophthalmology compensation survey so leaders can stop relying on generic healthcare numbers and start benchmarking pay with data that matches real practice roles. We explain why ophthalmology-specific compensation data is so hard to find, what we’re collecting in phase one, and how we plan to expand the survey and share implementation guidance. 

• why ophthalmology pay data often feels too generic to trust 
• what the compensation survey is designed to measure and why scope matters more than titles 
• the phase one focus on top administrators, leadership roles and providers 
• the specific data points we collect to make benchmarking useful such as region and practice size 
• why roles vary so much across practices and how that distorts salary comparisons 
• what future phases will include across departments, subspecialties, experience and certifications 
• how we think about acting on compensation findings through timing, communication and strategy 

Participate in the survey here - https://forms.gle/4fwQhHczFh1orqGPA 

If you have question, reach out to me at mike@seasoned-advice.com or through LinkedIn. You can reach Mandy Cansler at mandy@mandycanslerconsulting.com. 

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This episode is brought to you by Seasoned Advice HR, where I help eye care clinics to hire, retain, and manage better — helping you get Better Results Through People. Learn more at seasoned-advice.com. 

Contact me directly at mike@seasoned-advice.com 

Get my free HR and leadership downloads here: https://www.seasoned-advice.com/signup-for-free-downloads

Transcript

Why This Survey Exists

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey everybody, uh Mike from Seasoned Advice here. I want to talk to you about a project I'm super excited about. It is a project that I am doing with Mandy Cancler Consulting, and it is a ophthalmol compensation survey. And it's going to be a multi-phase project to help you know if you're paying the right amount for your staff, for your leadership. Phase one, uh, we're going to talk about it in this video or in this podcast. Um, so have a listen. We'd love to have you participate. Here's the show.

Launching A Free Compensation Survey

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Okay, well, well, here we are. It's uh iCare Leadership Live, and we're live here at the American Society of Ophthalmic Administrators. And I'm here with Mandy Kansler here. Mandy, thanks for being joining me on this couch here.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Aww, thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

And we're here to talk about um something very special, which is our very first compensation survey that we are going to be launching for ophthalmic leaders. And the very first phase of this survey is going to be focused on top administrators and providers. And Mandy, we're partnering up on this. Um and so, yeah, tell us a little bit about the survey and what it's designed to do.

The Data Gap In Ophthalmology Pay

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Yeah, thank you for that. I um so when you initially brought this idea up of kind of teaming up on this initiative, was excited to just kind of have a different direction because as a previous administrator, uh, something that was it is hard within ophthalmology. It seems like such a niche just using, you know, straight surveys that are just general health care is to have, you know, specific for what do leaders, the administrative team, physicians, there's not enough out there. It's so competitive, but there's not enough data out there unless you're working as a recruiter or you're in the field out there searching, and and so uh was really excited to kind of um focus on specifically what some of these job descriptions are, how many people report to some of these positions to really make it as relevant as possible for people to have the information they need to be competitive.

What Phase One Measures

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Yeah, that's right. And so we are building in a lot of detail into this survey, so geographic detail, size of practice. So we're collecting a lot of data points so that you can benchmark in this first phase of the survey, you'll be able to benchmark your practice against hopefully over a hundred other practices on top administrator, um, marketing, finance leaders, um, and providers. And so, and and we will have future phases of this compensation survey. Uh, and by the way, this will be free, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Yes, no cost. It's free, there's no cost. So um a ton of work goes into putting together a survey, which has been a really good learning opportunity for us to really appreciate the other surveys that that we have uh been a part of in the past, but to really lead this and provide the information. So coming from the HR side, the administrator side, my colleague Cindy Smith from the CFO side, the information that she uh has looked for as a previous administrator. So we're really excited. I feel like that this is going to be um just as close to the mark as as we can make this for our ophthalmic community. So I'm really excited for people to have the opportunity without having to pay for it to really have these resources as a tool.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

And you know, it is very difficult to get

Role Clarity And Better Benchmarking

SPEAKER_00 3:46

ophthalmology specific data on compensation up is what I have found. And so I'm that's one of the reasons I'm excited about this, is because we'll you will be able to have data specific to your industry. And I don't know, did you have you found it difficult to get uh data on compensation that's specific to ophthalmology?

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Yes, I have. And as a previous, you know, even for being a uh a leader myself, when you're going to negotiate or maybe even talk about, you know, what what should our role be compensated? And as we grow, you know, having the information to feel confident to come forward and have a conversation. And so that information was hard for me, even as someone to use it as a benefit for myself as an employee. But um, I feel like even as an administrator, when someone came to me with information they found out that that that they would find just from surfing the internet, is to really have the information I needed to be confident to meet them in in what really felt fair, sure, based on what their role was. And so um, I'm feeling really good with the information that we're working on. And um, I I think it really comes down to the specifics of no matter what that title is, or even uh it how many people report to that, what are their daily tasks? What does it look like? Because a manager in one office is different than a manager in another office, and a COO in one office is different than another office. So a lot of variance is there.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Correct. Yeah, and I think that is important because in a lot of surveys I've seen, you know, a CEO or a practice administrator at one practice is not the same as a practice administrator in another. And so when you're looking at, maybe you're looking at compensation data that that I have seen in the past, you never knew if it was really relevant for your practice. And so what we're trying to do is make it clear and allow you to filter and say, hey, you know what, we have 50 employees. Um, I want to see a practice in my region with 50 employees. What is the average pay? And so that will hopefully be more useful. Um, talk about, if you wouldn't mind, Mandy, some of the future surveys that we're that we've been talking about and what other data um people may be able to get when we release those future surveys.

Future Phases And Specialty Breakouts

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Yeah, so for the um future surveys that we'll be working on, we'll we'll start with uh the first phase, which is the physician and uh leadership uh levels, and then we'll move into across departments, so clinical and non-clinical positions, but even breaking down into subspecialties of retina specific, refractive specific, is oculoplastics comprehensive, uh positions that are hybrid or versatile, scribe positions, um, years of experience, certifications. There's a lot that it really drills down to.

How To Act On Pay Findings

SPEAKER_01 6:46

And then another piece of that that I find even more exciting to offer is we learned when as a previous administrator in my practice was that when we did our research and found out that we were out of the range of what was competitive and we had some adjustments to make and it was across the organization, then how do you approach that? How do you communicate it? What's the timing of that? All of that. And so we're gonna be um offering some uh future uh some future tidbits and advice on how do you implement and what is the strategy of how do you approach that and how do you deal with your team as you're trying to roll through this communication to bring people up to where they need to be.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's great to have data, but how do you act on it? Uh, and that's definitely something that we plan on including and offering uh to folks who are interested in it. Um and so yeah, I'm super excited to get the ball rolling here on this project.

How To Participate And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 7:50

If you're interested in participating, uh you can reach out to me through LinkedIn, Mandy. We're gonna be communicating this um through our network. Yes. Um but if you haven't received the link or information, then just reach out uh to either Mandy or I, uh me through seasoned-advice.com and Mandy.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

Mandy Cancelor Consulting. And I would encourage you if you've not participated in a in a survey like this before, it may we we've tried to simplify as much as we can while keeping it as relevant as possible, contribute you know, data in, data out. So the more information that we get, the more information that we can provide. And we we are uh we're really excited about this, and so we're hoping that we'll have a lot of participation in this so that we can continue to get the feedback uh after the survey from this of what we you know want to groom or maybe focus more on in our upcoming years. But uh, we're excited for our first launch.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

Awesome. Well, with that, thanks for joining me, Mandy. And I'm gonna put some links in the show notes for this show for how you can participate in the survey. Um so check the show notes um if you want to find out more. But this has been a special episode of iCare Leadership Live, live from ASOA in Washington, D.C.