The latest VA jobs actually are paying well but from what I've seen you have to be an OD in the VA system already to be a viable candidate.
Regarding business mistakes: I never made any serious business mistakes but I made a lot of little mistakes that added up over time.
A lot of the business mistakes were made from day one with regards to choosing the wrong lender for my commercial loan. The loan officers in charge drafted requirement prior to dispersing the monies to set up the practice. Example: You must send us copies of five insurance applications before we'll give you the first 5,000 in loan money. You must send us a copy of your commercial lease agreement with a minimum of 5 years at said location before getting 15K in money. You must hire a consultant from a list of bank-approved consultants prior to loan closing. The lendor actually set me up for failure because the consultant took 5K of my money and ran. I paid 5K for 3 phone conversations and the consultant dumped me within the first 2 months of practice opening, leaving me alone with no guide. I later found out he was retiring. The location ended up being a good location on the surface. The restaurant down the way got most of the complex's business and those clients did not frequent my optical at all. I got stuck in a bad location because of bank requirements. I found out most other businesses in complex were month-to-month on lease and I tried negotiating for that. The landlord said no. She said she'd sue me for the entire amount if I tried relocating.
One mistake was not getting separate money for inventory. The bank made me take it out of the working capital portion of the loan. That ate up a significant portion of capital right away. That was the lender's fault and I should've rejected the loan offer and went to a different bank. I made up for the difference by charging to my personal ccs. I did pay that off though by the end of the first yr and caught up.
The other ODs in the area played political games. I was the only full-service Eyemed office in town. Middle of second year of practice, Office X down the road got on Eyemed full-service and then was listed first on the Eyemed website because of wording. Being established, they got all the Eyemed business in the area. I literally lost 50% of the business overnight. When this same office heard I was closing, they went back to their former way of business and only offered Eyemed hardware benefits, not exams. Nice move on their part, I must say. Dirty, but clever.
Another thing happened around same time with VSP. One office in town had dr that was on verge of retirement. He no longer took VSP. I got all those VSP patients. Another office in town bought him the same month that Office X became full-service Eyemed. That other office took VSP and so whamo, they sucked up all my VSP traffic. That also contributed to the 50% drop in business overnight.
The disruption in cash flow came about because I lost my VSP and Eyemed business in the same month, leaving me only with Davis Vision. I was the only full-service Davis provider in town and everyone knows that you don't make jack off Davis Vision. Davis Vision is so bad that the IRS should allow us to write off the loss as a charitable contribution. Like they cap your reimbursement at around 175 dollars including exam and hardware. The average wholesale frame for me was around $35 dollars. The chair cost took up the remainder. There were not enough Davis patients in town to fill the gap. That's what dunked it under.
I really didn't make any huge mistakes. I was a victim of bad circumstances and a bad economy.
My rent wasn't even extravagant. It was around 900 per month. I didn't have any full-time employees. I had family volunteer as staff members to work for free. I paid myself hardly any draw. The maximum monthly draw was $1200,00. I lived off savings. The average draw was $800. My part-time optician made more money than I did. Even with these extreme cost-cutting measures, By comparison to other practices, my overhead was extremely low. I still couldn't make it work.
Talking to other OD's ... this may be becoming the norm.
There were staffing problems. That was the biggest error on my part. But that's something you learn as you go and other ODs had similar issues.
I still disagree with regards to needing optomap and other equipment. Patients are seeking out practices that have this device, at least in this area of the country. May be different back East. If you don't have the goodies, you can't compete in the market. (I never invested in really expensive equipment such as Optomap or OCT in my practice. I planned to do it later, but that day never came).
If you want to start cold you have to have enough savings to last you five years worth of minimal income because every dime you make working a second job will be used to keep your doors open. Five years is what it takes to make profit in this business. That is the norm from what other OD's have said. It's becoming an extremely difficult profession to make money in if you want to be your own boss. Also, you need a sub-specialty. You need connections. You also have to know how to play politics and how to charm people into liking you above all others.
Right now, being employed is better, if you can find a job. The jobs pay well, but are scarce. Fortunately, I have YEARS of varied experience behind me and that speaks well on my CV. I can out-compete any new graduate any day of the week. So that helps. But it's still not easy like it used to be.
Like in the late 1990's you could get a full-time position anywhere with excellent pay within 24 hours. Now, it can take 6 months for the same -- for less pay. And for the first time since I started practicing, I'm seeing the offered rate for an Independent Contractor fill-in in the cities going DOWN. It's gone down by 50-75 dollars in the past year in some regions!
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To the original poster ... in making a decision with regards to optometry ... you need to look also at how unified a profession is. How unified are the professional organizations? Do optometrists seem to like one another? Do they support one another? Do they agree on various subjects, or not? Study this board and other forums such as Optiboard and see how optometrists interact with one another online. Is it respectful, or not? Upon further study I think you'd conclude that this profession has enough problems that I'd take serious pause before making an investment in it.
Also ask what it is you like about optometry. Maybe opticianry would be a better route. It's cheaper and faster and you get to work with people and you can do lot depending on your motivations. You can also make good money in a management position, or a supertech position. Someday, you might even be able to refract!
I view optometry as an increasingly cutthroat profession where optometrists will deliberately undermine one another to survive in business. You have to be cutthroat to make it. The nice OD's will not survive this profession. You have to be cunning like Walt on Breaking Bad, basically (without being a murderous b*stard). You have to be one step ahead of your competition. You must know how to play the insurance game and that can be tricky because you have to be willing to walk the line of insurance fraud in order to survive in private practice. Without actually committing fraud, you do things that force the insurance companies to pay you the maximum out-of-pocket without them finding out that you're doing these things deliberately. If you don't, you'll bk, like me. I played by the rules and sunk.
