I am an Optical Mgr. (Certified Optician) for Wal-Mart and I am also a Pre-Optometry student. I plan on working in corporate optometry because I see what Optometrists make on a daily basis without all the overhead. All you do is show up, see patients, you tell them when you want to work and how often to schedule appts. They supply you with a tech who does all of the pre-testing, I & R, and paperwork. Also, the optical staff deals with all the insurance. The Dr. never even knows whether a patient has insurance or not. They make Dr's sign a simple contract but they never hold you to it and if you ever decide to leave, all you do is give a 30 or 60 day notice. I've worked with private OD's also, and I prefer corporate. All the corporate OD's that I've worked with (15 or more over the years) make over $110,000 a year starting out and that is only working 4 or 5 days a week. No Dr. ever works on Sundays, unless he/she just wants to. Your scope of practice all depends on you. If you want to co-manage or do pre and post ops you can. The equipment is standard - full exam lane, auto refractor/keratometer, NCT and Goldman, and Visual Field. Full range of contact lens trials in most brands and powers. I live in an average size town and there are 3 other OD's within 5 miles of our location. We see an average of 10 to 15 patients a day, however yesterday we saw 19, not bad for the week before Christmas. I don't see what all the fuss about corporate optometry is but everybody is different. If patients like you and you give a good eye exam, that's all that matters.
