PECAA founders (l to r) Bradley Smith, OD; Lance Anderson, OD; and David Wolf, OD.

PORTLAND, Ore.— Professional Eye Care Associates of America (PECAA), the national alliance of approximately 1,700 optometrists operating in 46 states, has secured financial backing from RevOptix, a newly formed eyecare practice solutions provider.

PECAA management and staff will stay in place, previous shareholders in PECAA have rolled their ownership interest into a minority stake in RevOptix, and of PECAA’s three founders—Bradley Smith, OD; Lance Anderson, OD; and David Wolf, OD—Anderson will serve on the RevOptix corporate board.

While the financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, "the financial backing and resources from RevOptix will allow us to accelerate the speed at which we can deliver our wide range of services and support to our 1,700 member doctors,” said PECAA COO Chris Millet. “These resources also allow us to pursue opportunities with both existing and new vendors within the eyecare space.” PECAA plans to have 1,600 locations in all 50 states by the end of 2015.

In addition to this investment in PECAA, RevOptix also recently announced a major investment in RevolutionEHR, a leading provider of cloud-based practice management and electronic health record systems, as reported Oct. 10, 2014 by VMail. “RevolutionEHR and PECAA will continue to operate their businesses independently,” according to RevOptix executive chairman, Gunnar Bjorklund.

“RevOptix has a compelling long-term vision to develop services and work with third party vendors to advance patient care and increase the value of eyecare practices,” according to Anderson, who explained that the current status of the field of optometry was in part the reason for this equity investment: “Independent eyecare providers are feeling more and more pressure from a number of factors concurrent in the eyecare market. These factors include higher costs of products, increased competition from vertically integrated big box retailers, and the continued growth of online optical retail sales in the U.S.

“We feel it is critical for our members that we expand our services with a mission of ‘by doctors for doctors’ and offer best-in-class products from our vendor partners. We will strive to provide the resources going forward to allow independent eyecare business owners the ability to compete on a more level playing field in the future.”

PECAA was formed in 2006 by a group of 12 practicing optometrists with the mission of protecting and promoting independent eyecare professionals through innovative programs, business services and marketing strategies. PECAA offers its members a wide range of in-house services and programs beyond just cost of goods discounts.

These offerings include vendor partnership programs, the IncentivEYES loyalty rebate program, which paid out over $820,000 to its membership in the first quarter of 2014, the Member Business Analysis (MBA) financial consulting and evaluation services, the MyEYEMedia Digital Marketing program, SuccessTrack financial benchmarking, a three-day annual meeting, annual business symposium events, on-demand continuing education programs, optical staff and optician training, optical merchandising workshops held throughout the U.S., and a newly formed billing and coding service.

PECAA employs 19 people, the majority of which are based in Oregon, and the alliance intends to hire at least eight more staff members in 2015 “to fill positions in new divisions and fill roles in current programs,” according to a PECAA spokesperson.