MCG Keeps Eye On Niche Business

Medical Consulting Group LLC helps its clients face the future.

The company, which has traditionally had a focus on the eye care industry, has diversified into other medical fields such as cosmetic surgery and the medical products industry.

Joel Nunneley is one of five partners and the managing principal of MCG’s Fayetteville office. He said the company will bring in between $4 million and $5 million in revenue this year and has been growing at about 15 to 20 percent a year for the last seven years.

MCG does everything for doctors and health care companies, including advertising creative services, owner representation, facility design, and state licensure assistance.

The group was started in Springfield, Mo., in 1989 by managing partner Bill Raybourn and opened its partner office in Fayetteville last year. Nunneley said the group also has a Chicago office.

With clients such as Medtronic Ophthalmics of Jacksonville, Fla., and Rochester, N.Y.-based Bausch & Lomb’s surgical division, MCG’s coverage is much larger than the region. Nunneley said the group does business all over the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Nunneley, who bought part of the company in 1997, said he travels a lot, but the decision to open the Fayetteville office late last year was based on his desire to spend more time with his family and to nurture MCG’s business in Northwest Arkansas.

The Northwest Arkansas market is behind trends he’s seen in other parts of the country, but it is an emerging market. One reason for that is because of the increased exposure cosmetic surgery is getting on reality television shows and the fact that many Baby Boomers want to change things about themselves, he said.

The U.S. Census Bureau estimated in 1990 that there are 76.9 million Baby Boomers. As the largest and most affluent segment of the population, the Boomers are turning to more elective procedures, Nunneley said. That has helped drive and influence the segment of the medical community MCG consults, he said.

The American Society of Plastic Surgeons claims that 8.7 million elective procedures took place nationwide in 2003. That figure is based on the society’s membership, so the number is probably much higher. Elective procedures and private pay surgery is more lucrative to doctors, so it makes sense for many to pursue the segment.

Robert Taylor of Taylor Plastic Surgery Institute in Johnson said MCG helped him write a business plan, pick an architect and contractor for his facility, then helped him apply for a state license for his operating room. MCG even came up with an organizational “traffic” model how he should run his office all the way down to staffing numbers and their qualifications, he said.

Nunneley said he thought his group helped Taylor turn his practice from 80 percent insurance pay to 80 percent private pay.

But Taylor said his practice is now 100 percent private pay. In the three years since he enlisted MCG, his revenue is up about 200 percent and he’s not on-call overnight or on weekends like before.

“They were a Godsend,” Taylor said.

James McDonald, principal of McDonald Eye Associates in Fayetteville, performs laser vision correction using Bausch & Lomb’s Zyoptix. He had a similar experience with MCG.

He said the group helped him focus his message to patients based on industry-wide concerns and misconceptions.

“They see the big picture so they are able to see the strategy to the best way to help the consumer,” he said.