That alone makes this practice unusual. But the more interesting question is how?

In this week’s episode of Power Hour, host Eugene Shatsman sits down with Dr. Kerry Reeves, Owner of Advanced Eye Care, to unpack the systems, patient psychology, and follow-through processes behind a remarkably different practice model.

At his primary location, Dr. Reeves sees patients four days a week, has no associate OD, and generated approximately $1.49 million in collections last year, with no revenue from glasses or contact lens sales and only a relatively small product component from dry eye and skincare.

His explanation for how the practice works is surprisingly simple: systems.

What Makes a $1.5M Professional-Fee Practice Possible?

Dr. Reeves has spent nearly three decades practicing in dramatically different environments, from traditional private practice to providing eye care in Haiti, working inside a high-volume ophthalmology practice, and eventually building his current model.

Those environments taught him something that now drives virtually every part of his practice:

You cannot rely on individuals to rescue a broken process.

The practice is deliberately engineered from the moment a patient schedules an appointment through their exam, treatment, follow-up, and eventual outcome.

Scheduling is segmented. Patient flow is structured. Staff responsibilities are defined. Multiple exam and specialty-treatment lanes operate simultaneously.

And Dr. Reeves continually looks for the next bottleneck preventing the system from producing the outcome he wants.

Maybe It’s Not Your People

Dr. Reeves makes a statement in this episode that every practice owner should consider:

If you continue getting the same undesirable result, stop immediately asking who failed. Ask what keeps producing this outcome?

His argument is that great people operating inside a bad system can still produce bad results.

And if the owner constantly has to step in, rescue the process, solve the problem, and push everything forward manually, then the practice does not really have a dependable system at all. 

That applies to employees, but it also applies to patients.

Stop Calling Patients “Noncompliant”

A doctor makes a recommendation.

The patient nods. They agree. Then they leave the office and nothing happens. They do not use the drops. They do not schedule the treatment. They do not buy the recommended product. And eventually we label them noncompliant.

Dr. Reeves challenges that entire premise.

The patient may have completely intended to follow through when they were sitting in the exam room.

Then they walked outside, picked up their phone, saw dozens of notifications, returned to work, picked up the kids, made dinner, and your recommendation disappeared into the rest of their life.

His philosophy is that the practice should continue owning the outcome even after the patient leaves. That requires a very different approach.

A Recommendation Is Not a Care Plan

This distinction becomes one of the most valuable moments in the episode.

A recommendation sounds like, “use these drops four times a day.”

A care plan explains the problem in language the patient understands, connects the treatment to symptoms they actually care about, tells them exactly what to do, anchors those actions into their normal routine, and establishes when the practice will check their progress.

Dr. Reeves gives the example of connecting drops to brushing your teeth or a hot compress to the patient’s morning coffee.

Instead of hoping the patient remembers, the system creates behavioral “hooks” around things they already do every day.

That is a very different level of accountability, and the same principle can be applied far beyond dry eye.

The Numbers Behind His Dry Eye System

Dr. Reeves has built dry eye and aesthetics into the practice alongside comprehensive care.

Today, he says more than half of his exam patients are referred for a dry eye evaluation, influenced in part by the patient population and the reputation the practice has developed for treating these conditions.

Of the patients he recommends for an evaluation, roughly 80% schedule. Approximately 80% of those scheduled patients show up. And about 60% remain in the recommended six-month treatment plan.

Those numbers are not accidental.

The team reviews performance weekly, identifies friction points, tests changes, and evaluates whether those changes actually improve the outcome. kerry-eugene

The question is always: Where is the system making it unnecessarily difficult for the patient to say yes or follow through?

Now Apply That Thinking to Your Optical

This is where Eugene takes Dr. Reeves’ philosophy and turns it toward one of the biggest problems facing independent optometry: Exam-onlys.

Imagine the doctor tells a patient they need progressives and anti-reflective treatment. Then the doctor walks them to the optician and says: “John is going to take great care of you.”

That is better than no handoff.

But Dr. Reeves argues that it still misses something important. Patients do not necessarily care about optical terminology. They care about the problem they told you they have.

So instead of talking about “anti-reflective coating,” the handoff might reinforce the patient’s actual problem:

The halos that bother them while driving at night. The constant blinking at the computer. The eye strain that makes the end of their workday miserable.

The recommendation becomes connected to an outcome that matters personally to that patient.

And suddenly selling a better product does not have to feel like an upsell.

If you genuinely believe the patient will see better, function better, or experience a better outcome with that solution, Dr. Reeves argues that failing to help them reach that outcome may actually be the greater disservice. 

The bigger lesson from Dr. Reeves’ practice is not that every OD should copy his model.

It is that extraordinary results rarely come from asking people to work harder inside the same process.

Sometimes the people are not the problem.

The system is.

Put The Eyecare B.O.S.S. to Work in Your Practice

Are you reading The Eyecare B.O.S.S. yet?

Thousands of copies of the growth manual have already been sold, but the book is only the beginning. If you’re ready to start implementing the systems inside your own practice, visit EyecareBoss.com.

There are more than 40 free tools available to download, including the same tools used with practices to help turn the concepts in the book into execution.

And the results are worth paying attention to.

Across a year-long study involving approximately 25 practice locations, participating practices saw average:

Refractions increase 19.4%. Revenue increase 23.9%.

In a market where much of the industry is flat, those results stand out.

You can use the book and tools independently, work alongside other practice owners in a group, or get one-on-one coaching support. Your call.

Your dream practice is waiting for you. Visit EyecareBoss.com

• The $1.5 Million Practice Model | See how Dr. Reeves built a highly productive practice without relying on optical or contact lens sales, and why systems, staff leverage, specialty care, and efficiency make the model possible.
• Maybe Your People Aren’t the Problem | Learn why repeatedly blaming employees or patients can distract owners from the process that keeps producing the same unwanted outcome.
• Recommendation vs. Care Plan | Discover why simply telling patients what to do is different from designing an experience that makes follow-through easier.
• The Psychology of Follow-Through | See how behavioral hooks, automated reminders, scheduled follow-ups, and accountability can help move patients from good intentions to actual outcomes.
• How This Applies to Exam-Only | Learn how the same principles can strengthen doctor-to-optician handoffs, communicate value more effectively, and help patients understand why the recommended eyewear actually matters to them.
• Build Around the Outcome | Instead of ending responsibility when the patient leaves the exam room, rethink the entire process from diagnosis to successful patient outcome.

Connect with Dr. Kerry Reeves

Dr. Kerry Reeves is the owner of Advanced Eye Care in North and South Carolina, bringing more than two decades of optometric experience spanning private practice, high-volume clinical care, and five years providing eye care in Haiti. His approach to practice ownership centers on systems, capacity, patient follow-through, and eliminating operational bottlenecks, with a clinical focus that includes comprehensive care, dry eye, specialty contact lenses, glaucoma, and cataract management.

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerryreevesod/
• Website: https://www.advancedeyecarenc.com/

Connect with Eugene Shatsman

Eugene Shatsman is Host of Power Hour, Managing Partner of National Strategic Group, and Co-Creator of The Eyecare B.O.S.S. A growth strategist and consultant to hundreds of optometric practices nationwide, Eugene specializes in scaling independent eye care businesses through structured strategy, data, marketing science, and operational clarity.

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eugeneshatsman/
• Website: https://eyecareboss.com