ASOA listens, curating conference to meet today’s member needs

When ASOA members and attendees of the ASOA Annual Meeting provide feedback, the leading U.S. society for ophthalmic practice administrators listens. There are many areas at the 2025 ASOA Annual Meeting that have been significantly influenced by attendee and member feedback. 

Take keynote speaker Joe Mull. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because he’s making his third visit to the ASOA Annual Meeting. Mr. Mull is a nationally recognized expert in the area of employee engagement. He is bringing his new talk, “Employalty: How to Ignite Commitment and Keep Top Talent in the New Age of Work,” to the meeting’s Saturday General Session. In this talk, Mr. Mull will dispel the myths that may hinder hiring, and he’ll share three factors that help determine whether a candidate will “join your organization, stay long term, and commit to doing great work,” according to ASOA’s description. 

“Joe is a fan favorite. We have people who still talk about when they saw him [at the 2018 ASOA Annual Meeting] in Washington, D.C. for the first time. Any chance that we can bring someone back who we know, who people trust, and who knows our audience to add that extra personal touch to it, we think would be beneficial,” said Tiffany Perlberg, ASOA Meeting Program Manager. 

The topic of employee loyalty speaks to the theme of listening to what ASOA attendees want.

“One thing we hear about all the time is hiring and retention—‘We can’t get people; we can’t get people to stay.’ Retention is such a huge issue that comes up year after year. I think having him focus on that in his talk will be beneficial for everyone,” Ms. Perlberg said. 

In addition to the range of Courses, Roundtables, and networking opportunities that ASOA attendees can expect Friday through Monday, another major new feature of the meeting takes place Friday afternoon. It’s a new program called Aii: Adoption. Integration. Implementation. 

Abigail Markward, MBA, ASOA Executive Director, said the idea for this program came out of the ASOA Board meeting where Patti Barkey, COE, and Carrie Jacobs, COE, OCS, felt strongly that practices come to ASOA because the society is the leader in adopting, integrating, and implementing from a business standpoint. 

“We felt we needed to do something specific on this front to educate our members on how to be the expert, regardless of career stage, in successfully onboarding and integrating new technologies, services, drugs, or what have you,” Ms. Markward said. 

The program will be case study based, providing blueprints for success tailored to each practice’s unique needs. 

“Along with the whole theme of listening to our members, I think what we hear is that when it comes to adoption, integration, and implementation of new technologies, some practices find success here but not here. Why did it work with this product this offering, and why didn’t it work here?” said Jennifer Gallihugh, ASOA Group Director. “With Aii, we’re setting the stage to be like a blueprint. What are those best practices? What can you learn from these case studies to make sure that every integration is successful? We’re taking the guesswork out of why something works versus why something doesn’t.”

Also new this year are Friday morning ASOA Feature Sessions. A range of sessions that were curated by the ASOA Annual Meeting Program Committee, designed to address the highest points of attendee interest and need, will be available. Sessions include beginner bootcamp, an advanced masterclass on finance, a session on practice culture, and a panel on customer service and patient access. These sessions, according to Ms. Perlberg, are a little longer (75 minutes) to give extra time to delve into these important topics. 

Another new-to-2025 feature are ASOA Masterclasses. “Every year, one of the most frequent bits of feedback we get is, ‘We want more advanced classes.’” The Annual Meeting program team cultivated these classes with those who have been in practice for 20+ years, creating high-level courses in the areas of finance, negotiations, leadership, and more. 

“Tiffany has worked to bring our Program Committee and our Education Committee in better alignment, so leading up to the Annual Meeting you’ll see reflected in our webinars will be similar topics as those featured in sessions and masterclasses at the Annual Meeting. ASOA is singing the same tune throughout the year; we’re building up to it before the Annual Meeting, the Annual Meeting will have this terrific programming, then coming out of the Annual Meeting, we will continue those themes,” Ms. Gallihugh said. 

As a final word, Ms. Perlberg said Gretchen Kimble, JD, COE, Program Chair of the ASOA Annual Meeting, thinks the number one thing that sets ASOA apart is the networking and how it brings people together. “We’re introducing an attendee meet and greet this year,” Ms. Perlberg said. “It will be on Friday right after the Featured Sessions. This will allow people to see who’s at the meeting, visit with old friends, or if they’re new, hopefully make some new ones who they can get to know throughout the meeting.”