Set up the workflow before your first patient

Start with the opening-day workflow

A new optometry practice needs more than a collection of software features. It needs a dependable way for someone to book an appointment, provide information, arrive at the right office, complete a visit, select optical products when appropriate and understand the next step. Before choosing software, write that journey in ordinary language. Identify the person responsible for each handoff and the record that tells the next person what has happened. This becomes your opening-day specification.

For example, a fictional new practice might have an owner who also examines patients, an optician and one front-desk employee. That team may need the same person to book a visit, check an intake and collect a payment. The software evaluation should reflect those changing responsibilities. A demonstration that only shows an owner account can hide the practical question: will the front-desk employee have the access needed to perform their job without receiving unnecessary access to unrelated work?

Jelo combines EHR, scheduling, patient CRM, optical POS, inventory and billing records. Its value for a new practice should be evaluated across those connections. Begin with the smallest complete visit your opening team must operate. Add more complicated examples after the basic journey is understood. Record what is included, what needs configuration and what depends on an outside account. An opening plan is much easier to manage when those three categories are visible from the beginning.

Turn a feature wish list into requirements

A useful requirement describes an observable result. “Easy scheduling” expresses a preference; “our front-desk employee can move a fictional appointment to another available slot and confirm the correct provider and office” describes a test. The second version gives your team something to observe in a demo and repeat during training. Apply the same approach to chart access, intake, optical orders, payments and follow-up.

Separate opening requirements from later improvements. A requirement is essential when the practice cannot responsibly perform the intended work without it. An improvement may still be valuable, but it should not obscure a missing essential connection or unfinished enrollment. Keep the list short enough that the team can explain why each item matters. A hundred unweighted checkboxes can make an incomplete implementation look impressive without showing whether the opening day will work.

For each requirement, record five things: the staff role, the task, the expected result, the evidence and the owner of any follow-up. Evidence might be a demonstrated screen, a sample export, a written scope statement or an account-specific test. Keep unanswered items visible. A vendor saying that a category is supported is a starting point, while showing your required configuration is stronger evidence. The software evaluation worksheet provides a place to organize those observations.

Plan the appointment and intake before building templates

Appointment setup determines how work reaches the practice. Decide which appointment types you intend to offer, which providers perform them, how staff will distinguish locations and how patients will receive practical instructions. These are practice decisions. A software calendar can represent the decisions, but it cannot choose the right operating model for your team. Ask the people answering the phone to review the terminology before it becomes part of the daily workflow.

Then review intake. Jelo supports patient intake and a configurable general-intake builder. Authorized staff can adjust supported questions, visibility, order and required responses. Start with the information your team actually uses. For every required answer, identify who reviews it and what happens when a patient cannot supply it. A form that is technically complete can still require a conversation; completion should not be mistaken for clinical reconciliation.

Rehearse the process on a phone as well as a desktop. Use fictional information and deliberately leave an optional field blank. Check whether the submitted responses are easy for the appropriate staff member to find. Plan how the practice will assist someone who has difficulty completing the form. This rehearsal can reveal unclear instructions, an unnecessary question or a missing staff handoff before those problems affect the first real patient.

Configure clinical documentation with the people who use it

The clinician should participate in choosing and configuring examination templates. Jelo offers customizable exam templates and role-controlled clinical workflows. The practical evaluation is whether the structure supports the clinician’s documentation process and makes relevant information understandable to another authorized person. Template flexibility is useful when it helps the team document the actual encounter clearly; the number of customizable fields is not a meaningful result on its own.

Use a fictional encounter to review the sequence from patient selection to final review. Ask the clinician to explain where history is reviewed, where findings belong and how the record is checked before finalization. Keep configuration questions separate from clinical decisions. A template does not establish which tests are necessary, determine a diagnosis or prove that a service can be billed. Those responsibilities stay with the appropriate clinical and billing professionals.

Before opening, agree on who may edit template settings and how proposed changes will be evaluated. An informal change made to solve one person’s problem can create confusion for another user. Record the reason for a change, test it with a sample and communicate the result to affected staff. That operating discipline helps preserve a consistent record even when individual clinicians have different preferences about the order in which they work.

Prepare optical inventory as an opening balance

If the practice will dispense eyewear, create an inventory plan before treating the catalog as ready to sell. The catalog describes products; stock quantities describe what is physically available. A frame’s model, color and size matter because similar-looking items can represent different variants. A demonstration should show how your team identifies the exact variant and how that identification connects to the item selected for an order.

Count opening stock deliberately. Assign a person to enter or review the catalog, a person to verify physical quantities and a person to resolve disagreements. In a small team, one person may hold more than one responsibility, but the checks should still be distinct. Record damaged items, display pieces, supplier returns and other exceptions according to the practice’s own procedures. Do not hide an unresolved discrepancy inside a total that looks convenient.

Jelo’s inventory workflows distinguish product information and quantities, and its multi-location functionality supports authorized stock transfers between configured offices. For a new single-location practice, the immediate priority is a reliable starting position. Test one normal sale and one correction with fictional data. Confirm which action changes the order, which changes the stock record and which requires a separate financial action. The inventory counting guide explains how to organize that review.

Validate the lab connection with your own account

Jelo’s VisionWeb integration launched in September 2026. The connection uses the practice’s VisionWeb account and the labs and catalog options associated with that account. A general integration label is not enough to establish that your intended supplier, lens configuration or ordering process is ready. Put the actual lab names and required order types on your implementation checklist and review them with the team.

Treat an optical order as several related records. There is the patient-facing retail order, the prescription and measurements used to prepare it, the lab submission and the response from the lab. A payment status does not establish that a lab accepted an order. Similarly, an order sent to a lab does not prove that the patient has paid. Staff should know which record answers each question and who handles a discrepancy.

During evaluation, ask to see a normal order and an exception using sample data. An exception could be a missing catalog option, an incomplete required field or a submission that requires correction. The purpose is to understand the handoff and the responsible person, rather than to submit a real order during a marketing demonstration. Complete any account prerequisites before choosing the date on which the practice will rely on the connection.

Separate platform, processing and insurance costs

Jelo’s platform costs $300 per month per location or $3,000 per year per location, paid upfront. Each paid location includes unlimited doctors and staff. A one-location practice therefore budgets for one platform subscription even when several people use it. A second paid location adds another subscription. Keep that subscription line separate from hardware, connectivity and other costs in the opening budget so that comparisons remain understandable.

Payment processing through Stripe is priced by Jelo at 3.5% plus $1.30 per transaction. As a simple arithmetic example, a $100 transaction has a processing fee of $4.80 at that rate. This example does not establish a payout date, refund policy or the treatment of other charges. Those details should be reviewed in the applicable processing terms. A transaction fee and a monthly software subscription pay for different parts of the workflow.

Insurance and payer services are handled by Taiga. Jelo charges 10% of insurance reimbursement for its AI biller service, separately from the platform subscription. The AI biller is available in beta without usage caps during beta; its reimbursement-based fee still applies. Avoid describing the lack of a beta usage cap as free billing. The pricing page brings the confirmed rates together, while the startup budget tool lets you add your own estimates for costs that Jelo does not set.

Build a dependency list around insurance services

Software readiness and payer readiness are different milestones. If the practice intends to work with insurance, list the exact payers, locations, providers and transaction needs to review with Jelo and Taiga. Confirm enrollment requirements and the information the practice must provide. Do not infer coverage for an individual payer from a broad statement that a service handles vision or medical insurance.

Assign someone in the practice to keep those dependencies visible. A useful record includes the payer or account, the required step, the person responsible, the current status and the evidence that the step is complete. The purpose is coordination. It is not a prediction of enrollment timing or a guarantee that a claim will be paid. Clinical documentation, payer policy and the actual circumstances of a claim still matter.

During the billing demonstration, focus on how the practice and service communicate about incomplete or unresolved work. Ask where staff can find the relevant record and how they know what information is needed next. A useful opening process gives every unresolved item an owner. It also distinguishes a submitted claim, a payer response, a remittance and a payment received. Those distinctions make later reconciliation more understandable.

Train by responsibility and observed completion

A training attendance list tells you who joined a session. It does not show who can perform a task. Build short role-specific exercises instead. A front-desk employee can demonstrate finding the right appointment and intake. An optician can identify a frame variant and review an order balance. A clinician can demonstrate the documentation and review workflow. A person handling finances can explain the difference between a recorded payment and a processor payout.

Let the staff member perform the exercise rather than simply watch someone else. Record where they hesitate and whether the difficulty comes from unfamiliar terminology, missing access, an incomplete setting or a process that has not been agreed. These causes require different fixes. More training will not resolve a missing account connection, and a settings change will not resolve an unclear division of responsibility.

Jelo’s typical go-live estimate is five to seven days after migration planning is complete, subject to export readiness, data scope, payer enrollment and team training. For a practice with no historical records, the migration work may be limited, but setup and outside dependencies still need attention. Choose the opening date based on the combined readiness of the practice, not solely on a software estimate.

Use a rehearsal to decide whether you are ready

Run an opening rehearsal with a fictional patient and clearly marked sample transactions. Start where a real patient would start: a booking or an inquiry. Follow the information through intake, staff review, the examination workflow, optical ordering where relevant, payment status and billing follow-up. Ask each person to identify the record they rely on before handing the work to the next role.

Include at least one ordinary exception. The patient may need to change an appointment, a form may be incomplete or an item may be unavailable. These examples are rehearsal scenarios, not descriptions of automatic Jelo behavior. The goal is to observe whether the team knows how to respond and when to ask for help. Document any work that needs a manual step so it does not become a surprise after opening.

Finish with a written acceptance list. Mark each requirement as demonstrated, needing configuration, awaiting an outside dependency or still unanswered. Decide which unresolved items prevent opening and which can be handled through an agreed temporary process. Keep the decision with the appropriate practice leaders. A complete-looking calendar is not a substitute for a team that can find records, explain payment status and resolve a handoff.

What customer experiences can tell you

Care Optica provides an example of a single-location practice moving from paper charting. According to the practice context supplied by Jelo, the doctor responded positively from the first day and the team found navigation easy to learn. The practice moved from difficulties finding charts and tracking HIPAA acknowledgments and consent to treatment to automatic tracking in Jelo. In the customer video, the owner also describes less filing, scanning, printing and use of folders.

Sharp Eye Care is another single-location practice. Its doctor came from other EHRs and, after 15 years of experience, found Jelo to meet the needs he had been looking for. The supplied context describes familiarity after one or two days; in the video, Dr. Sharp says it took him a day to feel comfortable finding his way around. That is his personal learning experience, not a promised implementation duration for every practice.

Use these stories to form questions for your own team. Which parts of your current or planned workflow should become easier to find? Which staff members need to feel comfortable before you open? What will you observe during the first week? Customer accounts help make those questions concrete, but they do not supply a numerical efficiency benchmark. Both videos and their transcripts are available in the customer stories library.

Keep control of your records and your next decision

Jelo is HIPAA compliant, offers a Business Associate Agreement and maintains BAAs with its providers. Its database is encrypted and backed up automatically every day. During onboarding, review the agreement and configure staff permissions for the work each person needs to perform. More detailed requirements, such as export format or a specific recovery objective, should be answered explicitly rather than inferred from a general security statement.

Jelo offers data exports for your own analytics and assistance if you need to move to another system. Cancellation is free. The treatment of prepaid fees and charges already incurred belongs in the applicable agreement; free cancellation should not be expanded into an unconfirmed promise of annual proration. Ask how an export will be scoped and how the receiving system will be checked before you close access.

Your next step is a focused demonstration. Joel or Loreli leads Jelo demo calls. Bring the opening workflow, the staff roles and the dependencies you have identified. Leave with a written list of demonstrated requirements and the next action for each unresolved question. That gives a new practice a practical basis for choosing software and a clear plan for turning the choice into an operating day.

Questions to settle before placing the first real appointment

What if an outside account is still pending?

Keep the account on the readiness list and identify which work depends on it. Discuss the supported temporary process with the implementation team and the appropriate practice representative. Do not quietly mark the dependency complete because another part of the software is ready. Staff need a clear answer about what they can do, what they must defer and who owns the next action.

How do we know training has been sufficient?

Ask each role to perform its opening tasks using fictional information and explain the result. Observe whether the person can identify the correct patient, office and record, recognize an incomplete step and seek the right help. The practice chooses its own acceptance standard. A customer’s short learning experience is useful context, but it cannot replace observing the people who will operate your practice.

What should we review after the first operating week?

Collect questions in one place and group them by cause: configuration, account readiness, staff familiarity or an unresolved operating decision. Review the most disruptive issue first and assign a specific next action. Keep any early measurement descriptive. A few days of activity are useful for finding problems, but they are not enough to establish a durable efficiency or revenue claim.