Job Prospects and Career Information

[azngi16]

I was informed by a friend that optometry is a dying profession. Is this true? What are the job prospects like for new optometrist? I hear that many optometrist are working 2-4 jobs just to make full time. And that starting salary was around 80k.

And also, if I'd like to learn more about the profession, like different areas of specialty, who should I go to? Do most optometrist enjoy their work? Does it get repetitive?

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[JAZZEYE]

I was informed by a friend that optometry is a dying profession. Is this true? What are the job prospects like for new optometrist? I hear that many optometrist are working 2-4 jobs just to make full time. And that starting salary was around 80k.

And also, if I'd like to learn more about the profession, like different areas of specialty, who should I go to? Do most optometrist enjoy their work? Does it get repetitive?

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos073.htm

 

[IndianaOD]

Interesting today.

A patient I had today has two sisters that are both optometrists. She asked me if I did it again would I choose optometry. While I generally like what I do I said no. She nodded and said both of her sisters also said they wouldn't do optometry again. Take it for what it is worth.

 

[achirum]

Interesting today.

A patient I had today has two sisters that are both optometrists. She asked me if I did it again would I choose optometry. While I generally like what I do I said no. She nodded and said both of her sisters also said they wouldn't do optometry again. Take it for what it is worth.

If she didn't give reasons why, this means nothing to me.

 

[opto2be]

Interesting today.

A patient I had today has two sisters that are both optometrists. She asked me if I did it again would I choose optometry. While I generally like what I do I said no. She nodded and said both of her sisters also said they wouldn't do optometry again. Take it for what it is worth.

What would you have done instead of optometry? And did your patient say what her sisters would've done instead?

 

[ODhopeful]

What would you have done instead of optometry? And did your patient say what her sisters would've done instead?

Dentist. The math is simple. Two eyes versus 30+ teeth.

 

[IndianaOD]

What would you have done instead of optometry? And did your patient say what her sisters would've done instead?

Dentistry would be on the short list for sure! I was also interested in dermatology and think I would have had the scores to make it into such a competitive match. She said one sister would be an attorney specializing in something. Didn't say for the other sister.

It wasn't a super in-depth conversation it was interesting that she brought it up. Apparently her older high school son was interested in optometry. I set them straight!

 

[yOyOYoo]

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos073.htm

good summary link.

Back to the original poster, it all depends where you would like to work. Saturated areas like California, you will likely make less, and there will likely be less available days. jobs are out there, but they are not plentiful, and there are a lot of applicants competing for the same jobs.

I know colleagues in California making $95,000 a year. I know colleagues making $43,000. The lower end is usually for colleagues who cannot find more than 3 days a week of work.

Optometry is not a dying profession. It's a crowded profession.

Other good careers to consider include: pharmacy, dentistry, nursing, physician's assistant.

 

[socal2014]

i dont know if you guys noticed this but like since optometry is such a crowded profession, then why were more schools opened? it doesnt make sense to open new schools when there are more than enough already, right?

i mean isn't there some optometry lobby to prevent new schools from opening or something idk.

 

[DrSpontaneouz83]

Well I think this is a problem faced by many professions. I have friends who are attorneys who still have yet to find a job after graduation, another friend is a pharmacist who is facing the same dilemma of saturation. We are a growing population and this is bound to happen in any profession with decent working conditions and excellent salary. And of course, EVERY job can become redundant...you just need to make sure you can live with that before dedicating 4 long, stressful years of your life.

As for the opening of schools, it is obvious that optometry schools are becoming large businesses, rather than educational institutions. If the AOSA was stronger and had more legislative support, maybe this problem could have been better managed. Until then, work on personality and other such skills which will make you a strong candidate for a good job when you graduate. I am sure if you enter other professional forums, these same problems persist.

 

[IndianaOD]

i dont know if you guys noticed this but like since optometry is such a crowded profession, then why were more schools opened? it doesnt make sense to open new schools when there are more than enough already, right?

i mean isn't there some optometry lobby to prevent new schools from opening or something idk.

OOOooo, don't get me started! Look up my thread about the new schools hurting the profession.

 

[whizzle]

Can you please explain why not optometry wouldn't be the best choice if you had to choose again in today's economy? I'm about to commit myself to applying, but as I still haven't, there's still time for me to carefully reconsider. (Sorry I'm being repetitive.)

 

[IndianaOD]

Can you please explain why not optometry wouldn't be the best choice if you had to choose again in today's economy? I'm about to commit myself to applying, but as I still haven't, there's still time for me to carefully reconsider. (Sorry I'm being repetitive.)

Just do some searches on here. It has been hashed out over and over before. It won't take long to find your answers.

Look over threads with: oversupply, medical insurance discrimination, commercial optometry, uncontrolled internet contact lenses and glasses, optometrists allowing terrible vision plans to spread. Many optometrists will sell out to the lowest bidder in a heartbeat.

The profession is too unstable IMHO to recommend. Look what happened in British Columbia, Canada!

One other thing to note. As far as I can tell optometry is the only medically related profession where the income has actually decreased over the past few years.

 

[physicslover]

idk if this has been discussed before.. but what about the whole baby boomer thing? Wouldn't the increase in elderly patient base create more job opportunities for optometrists at that time?

 

[KHE]

idk if this has been discussed before.. but what about the whole baby boomer thing? Wouldn't the increase in elderly patient base create more job opportunities for optometrists at that time?

I'm not as negative about the future of optometry as IndianaOD might be but that issue is a complete non starter. Baby boomers have been presbyopes for YEARS and as such, have already been in the optometric system for years. Babyboomers are not going to result in a significant increase in demand for optometric services. If anything, it might actually go DOWN now that they are all becoming absolute presbyopes.

 

[Meibomian SxN]

Just do some searches on here. It has been hashed out over and over before. It won't take long to find your answers.

Look over threads with: oversupply, medical insurance discrimination, commercial optometry, uncontrolled internet contact lenses and glasses, optometrists allowing terrible vision plans to spread. Many optometrists will sell out to the lowest bidder in a heartbeat.

The profession is too unstable IMHO to recommend. Look what happened in British Columbia, Canada!

One other thing to note. As far as I can tell optometry is the only medically related profession where the income has actually decreased over the past few years.

I would have to partly disagree with the latter statement of optometry being the only medical profession experiencing a decrease over the years. Take a look at a chart documenting insurance reimbursements over the years and I am sure you can see that office visits and surgical procedures are not on a steady incline.

 

[IndianaOD]

I would have to partly disagree with the latter statement of optometry being the only medical profession experiencing a decrease over the years. Take a look at a chart documenting insurance reimbursements over the years and I am sure you can see that office visits and surgical procedures are not on a steady incline.

Yes, but vision plan reimbursements and material profits are on the decline which is even worse than not keeping up with inflation.

This is why most MDs are not seeing the decline (though the increases have slowed) because the OV numbers are not decreasing that much and they see a lot of patients per hour.

 

[Meibomian SxN]

Yes, but vision plan reimbursements and material profits are on the decline which is even worse than not keeping up with inflation.

This is why most MDs are not seeing the decline (though the increases have slowed) because the OV numbers are not decreasing that much and they see a lot of patients per hour.

That's true.

 

[Oogilily]

The grass is always greener on the other side. Optometry is not the only career with problems in it. I worked for a commercial painting company and the boss was bidding against guys he was sure were paying to paint instead of getting paid because they were bidding so low. My point is, every career, even painting, has issues and even has pricing problems.

I'd be curious to here what solutions are floating around out there to our current problems (besides dumping all of my money to the AOA). I hear a lot of complaining on this web site but not a lot of what we can do about it. I know it's complicated, but it would be nice to know how to protect my future and the future of optometry. Don't take this as a bash of my own, I really am curious what it is I can do to help.

 

[ksidoc]

The grass is always greener on the other side. Optometry is not the only career with problems in it. I worked for a commercial painting company and the boss was bidding against guys he was sure were paying to paint instead of getting paid because they were bidding so low. My point is, every career, even painting, has issues and even has pricing problems.

I'd be curious to here what solutions are floating around out there to our current problems (besides dumping all of my money to the AOA). I hear a lot of complaining on this web site but not a lot of what we can do about it. I know it's complicated, but it would be nice to know how to protect my future and the future of optometry. Don't take this as a bash of my own, I really am curious what it is I can do to help.

It is very difficult due to laws against price fixing. We are not allowed to discuss setting a reasonable fee for examinations and what we will and will not accept. As Meibomian Sxn (great name by the way) has already eluded to, many ODs will take any crap plan that comes across their desk in hopes of generating more traffic flow through the office, which has happened as a result in a saturation in the market. The problem is these plans do not pay you what you are worth and often times you cannot make over a certain amount, no matter what the patient buys in your office. I have a collegue that stopped taking one of the worst plans and she actually owed the insurance company over $9000 in charge backs for patient add-ons!!!!! The problem started long before most of us were around. Optoms made the majority of their money from the goods they sold, leaving their professional fees under market value. Along comes vision plans to take the profit from your materials and pay you less than what was already being charged, which again was way under market value. It is a terrible scenario which is not likely to be fixed unless the vision plans just simply go away, which does not look like it will happen. I have thought for some time that we are only a few years behind pharmacy, soon all of us will be employed by large chains.

 

[socal2014]

but pharmacists are not really doctors, i.e. they do not conduct examinations.

 

[KHE]

but pharmacists are not really doctors, i.e. they do not conduct examinations.

Unfortunately, that doesn't really matter because what a pharmacist brings into a particular "store" is far more per hour than the average OD can bring in.

The biggest problem with a career in ANY health discipline really is that as providers, we don't control the most important thing. THE MONEY. Our reimbursement is essentially dictated by other people whether it's bean counters at insurance companies or bean counters at the government. The way that we conduct our business is also essentially dictated by people other than ourselves (see coding and exam requirements whether it's from insurance companies or vsp or whatever) Dentists have done the best job of insulating themselves from this but even they are slowly tilting. We have dentists in the malls in my area. We have dental insurances making more and more penetration. Their time will come soon enough. Not next month, or even next year. But soon enough.

Can you imagine any other profession or industry where everything is paid for by someone other than the people you serve? Can you imagine managed law? Managed accounting? Managed hair?

ksidoc has indicated his desire to go to medical school and pursue ophthalmology. If that is what makes him happy, then more power to him but I fear he'll be in the same boat soon enough.....battling insurance companies and constantly feeling undervalued. He'll make some more money because surgeons make more than optometrists on average of course, but it's the same problem. He still won't control the money. And to make that multi six figure income, he'll be plowing through 50, 60, 70 geriatric patients a day.

So while I enjoy what i do and I make big money doing it, I'm a partner in a large clinic and we have the advantage of the economy of scale. The ability for a small time independent optometrist to start up a practice cold or continue on as a solo doctor is going to be harder and harder because we don't control the money and as medicine becomes more and more political, that will only get worse.

That doesn't mean that I would not encourage someone to not pursue optometry but it's something you really gotta be aware of. If you were going to open a restaurant, would you want someone else to dictate what you could be paid for the food you served? Probably not, but we essentially have that problem.

That for me is the biggest frustration of being a health care provider. That and the fact that it's not like owning a Dunkin Donuts or a toy store, or an ice cream stand where you can hire other people to do the work for you and your business makes money when you're not there. You can do that a little bit in health care and it works for me because I have a partner and also an associate so I can go on vacation for a week and be confident that I'll still make money. As a solo provider, you and ONLY YOU can do the work. So if you're not working, your business is making NO money.

That kinda blows too. lol

 

[JAZZEYE]

KHE in reference to "being there all the time" ...I may have the wrong idea but I thought as the Owner OD you only had the option to some type of minimum Hrs.on site to be legal maybe 40 % of the time..if you have a successful location wouldn't it be feasible to hire some new OD's and become more of a Manger OD = more free time ?

 

[KHE]

KHE in reference to "being there all the time" ...I may have the wrong idea but I thought as the Owner OD you only had the option to some type of minimum Hrs.on site to be legal maybe 40 % of the time..if you have a successful location wouldn't it be feasible to hire some new OD's and become more of a Manger OD = more free time ?

I'm not sure what you mean. Some states do seem to have some sort of "minimum hours" per location that the owner doctor must actually be present in any particular location, but my state does not have that. I don't think most states do.

Yes, what you're describing is what I hope to ultimately attain. I would rather hire another OD to see "most" patients. The problem with that is that most employed ODs do not think about the business in the same way that an owner OD does. That makes it hard for the owner OD to be away all that much.

 

[Meibomian SxN]

....The problem started long before most of us were around. Optoms made the majority of their money from the goods they sold, leaving their professional fees under market value. Along comes vision plans to take the profit from your materials and pay you less than what was already being charged, which again was way under market value. It is a terrible scenario which is not likely to be fixed unless the vision plans just simply go away, which does not look like it will happen. I have thought for some time that we are only a few years behind pharmacy, soon all of us will be employed by large chains.

This is EXACTLY the problem! We as ODs need to have more emphasis on the services we provide. Goods are no longer profitable, and certainly not to the extent they used to be. Before the problem was "Can I have my Rx because there's a cheaper deal down the steret", not its that plus "Can I have my PD because there's an excellent internet glasses/contacts deal!"

 

[PharmaTope]

but pharmacists are not really doctors, i.e. they do not conduct examinations.

lol really? last time i checked PharmD = doctor.

many would say an OD isn't a "real" doctor...

 

[Mewcakes]

lol really? last time i checked PharmD = doctor.

many would say an OD isn't a "real" doctor...

Ya. Pharmacists definitely earn the title of doctor. They have to be REALLY sharp for what they do. The level at which they have to know their stuff, in surprised they're not PhDs at the same time. I'm probably biased because my cousin is graduating from ucsf next year, but she's told me a lot about what they have to know and it's intense.

 

[bobbio]

but pharmacists are not really doctors, i.e. they do not conduct examinations.

Pharmacists are doctors for the same reason optometrists are called doctors - each have earned a doctorate in their respective fields. Not all doctors have to conduct examinations.

 

[socal2014]

What I meant was if you look at the other health disciplines, all of them require some sort of patient examination as their primary job description. Pharmacists, not so much.

A doctor who doesn't conduct examinations isn't a doctor. That's logical, is it not?

 

[WADO]

What I meant was if you look at the other health disciplines, all of them require some sort of patient examination as their primary job description. Pharmacists, not so much.

A doctor who doesn't conduct examinations isn't a doctor. That's logical, is it not?

I would have to respectfully disagree with your logic.

So what do you call someone that has earned their doctorate (MD, DO, PharmD, DDS or OD) that works in academia? Do you call them sir or madam because their current job description doesn't include conducting examinations?

Cheers

 

[socal2014]

I would call them with their first name. Even if they requested to be called Doctor. X, I still would not call them Doctor so and so.

 

[JMU07]

I would call them with their first name. Even if they requested to be called Doctor. X, I still would not call them Doctor so and so.

A lot of optometry school professors (well, maybe not a lot, but some) are retired from patient care, or choose not to see patients because they teach. Good luck calling them by their first name, that's so disrespectful. Do you call your college professors by their first name because they have their doctorates and don't see patients?

 

[admiralbean]

The title of "doctor" implies that a person has completed a doctorate level of education in their particular field. They have definitely earned the title of doctor regardless of whether or not they are a practicing clinician. It's a respect thing.

 

[bobbio]

I would call them with their first name. Even if they requested to be called Doctor. X, I still would not call them Doctor so and so.

You can't be serious Good luck trying to pull that off.

 

[socal2014]

I don't see what the big deal is.

There is no golden rule about calling a person who has earned a Ph.D degree a doctor.

I would still call an optometrist a doctor, likewise I would call a veterinarian a doctor too. If you conduct examinations on patients, then the term doctor should be applied to him or her. However some doctorate degree holders do not conduct examinations, such as instructors or pharmacists, so I don't see any reason to call them doctors. I mean they have no patient interactions whatsoever, from what I have observed.

Also, the whole respect thing is kinda blown outta proportion. Say you make a dinner reserve, when the restaurant asks you under what name, do you reply with Dr. John or Mr. John?

 

[JAZZEYE]

The value is in the intangible branding, the perceived prestige of it in the society (whether you like to show off, or just privately knowing that you're among the select few who possess a Doctorate ) sort of like a luxury watch...

If next time, you would like to be in a Pharmacist or Professor's favor...by all means refer to them as Doctor !

 

[ksidoc]

I would call them with their first name. Even if they requested to be called Doctor. X, I still would not call them Doctor so and so.

The word doctor comes from the Latin word "docere" meaning to teach. Therefore, if you really want to get technical, only our professors should be called "doctor" and the rest of us, I don't know, perhaps Clinician Jones?

Really, that is a silly statement. The same type of statements that other, not all, doctoral level professions claim that we should not be referred to as doctor because we are not MD or DO and it causes "patient confusion."

I have known some absolutely brilliant chemists, physicists, etc. They deserve the title doctor as much as any other doctoral level profession. An open mind will better serve you in life.

 

[WADO]

I don't see what the big deal is.

There is no golden rule about calling a person who has earned a Ph.D degree a doctor.

I would still call an optometrist a doctor, likewise I would call a veterinarian a doctor too. If you conduct examinations on patients, then the term doctor should be applied to him or her. However some doctorate degree holders do not conduct examinations, such as instructors or pharmacists, so I don't see any reason to call them doctors. I mean they have no patient interactions whatsoever, from what I have observed.

Also, the whole respect thing is kinda blown outta proportion. Say you make a dinner reserve, when the restaurant asks you under what name, do you reply with Dr. John or Mr. John?

It is clear you don't have an understanding of what a doctor is. Take some of the imparted knowledge provided from other forum members or do some research before making assumptions. You only sound more ignorant by trying to defend your premise that only a person that conducts examinations is a doctor.

Also, pharmacists do interact with patients. How else would they consult with patients about drugs?

 

[socal2014]

If next time, you would like to be in a Pharmacist or Professor's favor...by all means refer to them as Doctor !

That is about the only intelligent reason to refer to a professor or a pharmacist as a doctor.

To answer some other questions,

A pHD holder = an academic
A pHD holder who "works" = a worker
A pHD holder who conducts examinations = a doctor

IMO.

 

[bobbio]

That is about the only intelligent reason to refer to a professor or a pharmacist as a doctor.

To answer some other questions,

A pHD holder = an academic
A pHD holder who "works" = a worker
A pHD holder who conducts examinations = a doctor

IMO.

From what you've written it looks like you don't understand the difference between a PhD and other doctorate degrees. Physicians, pharmacists, dentists and optometrists are awarded a doctorate not a PhD, unless they've completed a dual degree program.