Hey guys,
I've seen my share of negativity about optometry on this forum. For PPs, corporations like Lenscrafters are not beneficial to their practice. However, I think PP optometrists can still make a good living and are not necessarily always competing with big boxes - because PP optometrists still dominate the contact lenses business. Yesterday, I was at the mall looking to buy contact lenses (first time user). The laws in Canada, and maybe U.S. as well, require people to visit an optometrist before getting fitted for contacts. The mall optometrist (PP) charges $99 for the exam, $50~60 for the fitting (optional, if you already know how to wear them), and another $50 "deposit" that pays towards a year's supply of contacts (I believe this is to make you commit to pay for at least a year's supply). Not a low fee at all. Also, the doc's office is right next to the Lenscrafter, whose staff refers anyone looking for contact lenses to the doc next door because Lenscrafter doesn't deal with contacts. I didn't interview the optometrist, but it is my belief that the optometrist makes a good living because 1. he's been in the mall forever and 2. he gets ALL the contact lenses business.
In countries like Singapore, the laws are different. You can buy contact lenses from any optical store without going to an optometrist. As a matter of fact, optometrists don't (or rarely do) exist in Singapore. Here, the laws require people to go through optometrists to get contact lenses, so I think that PP optometrists can still earn a very good living by dominating the niche of contact lenses. I may be wrong, and I welcome any experienced optometrist here to shed some light in this.
Any dominance that PP has in the industry is deceiving for several reasons. First, looking at PP optometry today is like looking at the night's sky. You're seeing the stars as they were 100s, 1000s, or even millions of years ago. What you see now is not what is actually there. Optometry is the same way. When you visit a PP office and it's doing well, you have to understand that new grads absolutely do not have the same rules to play by. Every year, PP shrinks as a percentage of the whole since grads are flooding into commercial, growing that side of the profession. The successful optometric PP is something that will fade away until all that's left is corporate/commercial.
Second, in the past, PP most definitely dominated both the spectacle and the CL market. If patients wanted to get correction, they had very few choices other than going to see their OMD or OD. Be sure - PP does not dominate the CL market, particularly when the CL services provided by many ODs are something that is "expected" as free service. When patients go to their internist or dentist, they don't "expect" free services. When patients show up for their annual exam and CL check, they will often throw a fit that they have to pay for a CL check since "I've already been fit and paid you last year." Commercial/corporate optometry has given away ODs services for the purpose of selling materials and in doing so, they've trained the public not to place any value on our services. Contact lens services, particularly ongoing or maintenance services, are something that should be free in the eyes of the public.
Thirdly, the online marketplace is having a significant impact on CL sales for all practitioners. I've seen a noticeable increase in the number of patients who take their CLRx online. Here in the US, the law requires a signed Rx before CLs can be ordered online, but the law also states that if an order is placed and the doc doesn't respond in 24 hours, the order will be filled. Ordering CLs without an Rx has never been easier now that they're available online. I see a lot of college students and they tell me it's as easy as ordering a text book.
You guys really have to understand that the ODs who are on here telling you what you don't want to hear are not on here for fun or for their own benefit. From an outsider's perspective, things might look ok. But when you've actually practiced for 6 or 7 years, you've worked in most of the types of settings that exist, and you've seen the inner workings of the profession, good and bad, you come to an understanding that the field is not what it seems when you're looking at it through an applicant's eyes. It just isn't.
Private practitioners who are doing well now will likely be doing well in 5 or 10 years, relatively speaking. Don't let that notion fool you into thinking that you'll be able to leave school in 5 years and attain what they have. It's a rough optometric world out there for new grads now, but the climate that will exist for new grads in 5 years will be exponentially more awful - the new schools and other changes that are going on as we speak will virtually guarantee that.