35-year-old Kasson eye care practice changes hands

Dr. Christine Leska has sold her Kasson Eye Care practice to Dr. Courtney Sivertson and Dr. Jeff Anderson, who have renamed the practice Lifetime Eye Care.
The sale was completed on Dec. 31, and the practice’s three staff will stay on. Leska will remain as a practicing physician and collaborate with Sivertson and Anderson in serving the firm’s nearly 3,000 area customers.
“It’s going great,” Leska said. “My staff is excited to know they will continue having jobs and our patients are glad to see familiar faces. The new doctors are doing everything they can to make it easy and smooth.”
Leska purchased the practice in 1990, and it was then called Kasson Optometric Center and served as a satellite office for its chief doctor at that time. Leska had worked there as an associate physician and bought the practice. Its former owner had started the practice in February of 1986, making it now 35 years old.
Leska put the practice up for sale about a year ago, and was told by her Nebraska marketing firm that it would take a few years to sell. The marketing firm urged her to contact physicians she knew to see if they had any interest in buying it.
“One of the first people who popped into my mind was Dr. Anderson,” Leska said. She had broken her leg in 2001 and was out of the office for more than a year having surgeries off and on. Anderson helped out at her practice while she was laid up.
“I called him and I talked to him and explained what I was doing,” she said. “I asked if he was interested in purchasing my practice and he was very interested. I almost fell off my chair. I was told to expect it to take two to three years to find a buyer for a solo practice in rural Midwest Minnesota.”
More commonplace for solo-run independent doctor practices is to simply shut down when its chief doctor retires, Leska said. But that was not her dream.
“I didn’t want that to happen because we are the only eye care practice in Dodge County,” she said. “I wanted to know my patients would be taken care of and that my staff would continue to have jobs. It’s a good situation for everybody.”
Anderson and Sivertson’s main practice is in Rochester, with small practices also operating in Preston and Spring Valley. The new owners of Lifetime were drawn to the small-town atmosphere in Kasson and saw an opportunity they couldn’t refuse.
“We’re both small-town people,” Sivertson said of he and Anderson. Both grew up in small towns and were eager to be part of another small town community.
Sivertson and Anderson gain an eye care practice in Kasson that boasts a patient list of 2,585 patient households. Patients come from all over Dodge County, as well as Byron, Rochester and Owatonna. They even visit from the cities after having moved.
“They often come back to see us,” Leska said. “It’s quite a compliment.”
As part of the ownership transition, Leska agreed to remain on staff for at least three years. “We don’t want people to feel like they’ve never been here before,” Sivertson said. “Dr. Leska has been seeing patients for a long time. She knows them. It makes the transition easier if they know the office has a different name but the care I receive and the people I know are still there. It makes patients feel at home.”
 
The Lifetime team says giving patients a personal touch is what makes them stand out among their competition. Leska often fills in Sivertson and Anderson about patients they’re about to see, adding an element of knowledge that can’t be communicated via online patient files.
“We strive to do whatever will work best for the patient,” Sivertson said. “We give them the best treatment we can.”
Anderson said he’s excited to be involved in a town that is “growing and has a great clinic in it. We know Dr. Leska, she’s been a friend for a long time. To be able to buy her clinic and, more importantly, have her as part of the practice is so exciting.”