It is safe to say that I have been one of the doctors who has been negative about optometry, both here and on ODwire.org.
I still stand by my statements though. That is that the future of optometry is very much like pharmacy. The vast majority of you will be working retail hours in retail locations. This is not necissarily a bad thing. You will make decent money. You will not starve. You will not default on your student loans. You will be able to maintain a middle/upper middle class lifestyle for the foreseable future.
However I think that for the vast majority, owning your own practice is not going to be in your future.
That being said, if you want to try to buck the trend, here is what you have to do to succeed, IMHO of course.
1) The most important ingredient in your success will be your willingness to move anywhere in the country. If you are willing to move anywhere (urban, suburban, rural) then you can do well. If however you have a particular area in mind where you want to practice, you will be more limited. If, for whatever reason you HAVE to practice in San Francisco California, Hartford COnnecticut, Nashville Tennessee etc. etc then you MUST do a lot of research about those cities BEFORE you attend optometry school.
2) I have found that the number of ODs or OMDs in an area actually has little bearing on your chances of success. What you need to find out is if you can be admitted onto the top 5 MEDICAL plans in your area. If you can not, then you may want to consider practicing elsewhere. VISION plans can be annoying but not always. You can always get on VISION plans but if an area is dominated by one vision plan, you may want to reconsider because you will end up at the mercy of that vision plan. Hypothetically, say that 25% of your patients use VSP. VSP covers exams once a year. WHat if they suddenly decide to only cover exams every TWO years? What if they decide to slash reimbursement by 50%? Can your practice absorb that hit? This is what I mean by being at the mercy of the vision plan. Just like you don't want more than 10% of your stock portfolio to be in one stock, you don't want more than 10% of your patients having one particular insurance plan.
3: Do not elect to practice in a state that has a wide scope of
practice law. Wide scope of practice laws do NOT mean anything
unless you can get admitted onto insurance panels, because contrary
to what people will tell you, patients are NOT going to pay you $400
out of pocket for a glaucoma evaluation when they can have it done
by a fellowship trained glaucoma specialist for a $10 copayment. I
only go to doctors who are on my health care plan
why would you
expect your patients to be any different?
4: Do not assume that because there are ODs on some insurance
panels that you can get on them too. When I started, I phoned up
some local ODs and found out that yes, they were on panels, but that
I could not get on because they were "closed to new providers."
georgeyboy said:
Look at some of the posts on various websites such as odwire.org. I know that optometry is what you make of it but I have to admit that I get scared sh*tless when I read some of these posts. I do truly believe that opt schools don't tell students the whole truth about what is happening to the profession and just say everything is fine and dandy. The whole decline of private practices, the possibility of refracting opticians, too many ODs and lack of jobs are all serious concerns. I just feel that corporate america has optometry by the balls because ODs rely too much on the selling of glasses and contacts to bring in money. I also don't want to go through 4 more years of schooling just to work the same crappy hours and at the same store as I did in high school. I wish I had a time machine to see what the future will hold before I ever pay a dime to any school.
