Luce Care Industry Session

Speaker: Greet COPPENS

Every ophthalmologist who has built a practice eventually reaches the same crossroads: what is it worth on the day I stop, how does it stay fair between partners of different generations, and how much of my week is spent on everything except medicine?

In this talk, Greet Coppens tells the story from the inside. She ran a family practice spanning three generations of ophthalmologists, most recently together with her parents — a practice without staff, where every decision, every investment and every risk was carried personally. When the question of succession and continuity arrived, the family chose to sell the practice to a network owned by ophthalmologists, rather than stay independent or sell to a corporate or private-equity buyer.

She walks through what that decision meant in practice: the doubts beforehand, the questions put to the founders, the protections negotiated into the agreements — and what actually changed after joining, as well as what did not. Clinical freedom and the relationship with patients stayed hers; finance, IT, legal and purchasing moved off her desk; and the value built over three generations found a home instead of evaporating.

This is a personal account rather than a corporate pitch, intended for colleagues living with the same question — whether they are starting out, running a family practice, or wondering what happens to the practice they built.