Is Optometry worth it or what they say true

This forum made possible through the generous support of
SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

jtenb7

Junior Member
10+ Year Member
5+ Year Member
15+ Year Member
Joined
Jul 13, 2005
Messages
11
Reaction score
0
I know every profession has it's pitfalls. Since deciding to change careers I have been doing a lot of research and I'm hearing a lot of negative things about this field. I'm about a month away from quitting my full time job and I want to be well informed so that I can make the best decision. I want the truth about the profession.

Here are my concerns,

Why isn't managed care accepting Optemetrist? Can you have a successful practice without it? Will this change in the next 5 to 10 years?

Will doing a residency and specializing increase your chances of someone wanting you as an associate? Does it make you more marketable? Which specialties are best?

Will most graduating optometrist end up working for corporations, working late, weekends and not being able to give the type of care they would like to because of the corps rules.

Will opening a practice in an inner city increase your opportunities?

If private practice is making most of it's money from the sale of contacts and glasses, is there concern that laser surgery will drop sales? And do you feel like you have a store rather than Doctors office?

Are the people complaining, really just complaining or is there reason for concern? I'm changing careers and I'd like to think that it's positive and not another dead end.

Many questions. Feel free to comment on all or one. Thanks for your knowledge and opinions.

Jennifer

Members don't see this ad.
 
jtenb7 said:
I know every profession has it's pitfalls. Since deciding to change careers I have been doing a lot of research and I'm hearing a lot of negative things about this field. I'm about a month away from quitting my full time job and I want to be well informed so that I can make the best decision. I want the truth about the profession.

Here are my concerns,

Why isn't managed care accepting Optemetrist? Can you have a successful practice without it? Will this change in the next 5 to 10 years?

Will doing a residency and specializing increase your chances of someone wanting you as an associate? Does it make you more marketable? Which specialties are best?

Will most graduating optometrist end up working for corporations, working late, weekends and not being able to give the type of care they would like to because of the corps rules.

Will opening a practice in an inner city increase your opportunities?

If private practice is making most of it's money from the sale of contacts and glasses, is there concern that laser surgery will drop sales? And do you feel like you have a store rather than Doctors office?

Are the people complaining, really just complaining or is there reason for concern? I'm changing careers and I'd like to think that it's positive and not another dead end.

Many questions. Feel free to comment on all or one. Thanks for your knowledge and opinions.

Jennifer

I will give you my opinions, for whatever they're worth.

Many managed care plans don't accept providers who aren't MDs or DOs.

I think the chances of having a successful practice without managed care is vanishingly small. Very very very few practices, and optometry practices in particular can get away with this because so many other providers DO take managed care. Think about it. I only go to doctors on my insurance panel, and I'm sure you do too. Why would you expect your patients to be any different. How many physicians offices do you know that don't take at lease some managed care plans? As I said in my previous post, no one is 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. It doesn't matter how much of a "good guy" you are.

A residency will not make you more marketable to optometrists. Or at the very least, it won't get you any more money in terms of salary or benefits. It is a must for academia, the federal systems and most ophthalmology offices, which ironically tend to pay less.

I worked for many corporations and many private doctors in my time in optometry. Never once was my clinical decision making ever influenced, or attempted to be influenced by corporate interests. It was influenced many times by private practitioners.

Opening an office in the inner city will likely give you more opportunities if you can avoid seeing a large number of medicaid patients. The best patient population in my opinion were the so called "working poor" who weren't covered for eye care by their employer, yet made too much money to qualify for medicaid. Therefore, they had to pay mostly out of their own pocket.

There is no concern about laser surgery with respect to materials. If anything, it helped initially because it did bring more people into the office. The biggest threat to material sales is the opening of a Walmart or Costco on every street corner, and the explosion of internet retailing of these products. Another huge issue will be the continued growth of "managed vision care" which has a tendency to drive patients into commercial outlets. WHen I practiced, I used to buy my contact lenses from costco because they actually used to sell them for LESS than what I could buy them for from my distributor.

People are complaining because there's a natural tendency for people to do that. However I think there is very real cause for concern, and I would tread very cautiously if you are considering investing a considerable amount of time, money, blood, sweat, and tears to pursue this. I read in another post of yours that you are considering Michigan. If you are limited to a particular state, or to a small portion of a particular state, your chances of success are much lower. If you are willing to move anywhere in the country, you will likely do fine.

What makes you think you want to do this, and what research have you done to look into the field and prepare yourself for it?
 
jennifer,

you have a lot of good questions and i'll try to answer what i can.

1st, i wasn't aware that managed care was no longer accepting anymore od's. you might want to double check your info and source again. but without it, you can have a sucessful practice as long as you have a very good business plan / marketing strategy.

what will increase your chances of being hired would be your experiences as well as our knowledge of insurances and your ability to adapt quickly to your new office. do you have any experiences in the optometric industry?

with the ratio of new (optometry) graduates going into the field and very little od's retiring, new grads will work wherever they can find a job, regardless of preferences. you have to remember that they have a huge (~ $150,000) loan that they need to start paying off.

opening a successful practice depends on a lot of factors, i.e. location, location, location; as well as office design, hours of business, marketing campaign, etc.

as to lasers, people need to understand that it's only temporary. if done in your 20's to 30's it can last for a decade or so. but as you grow older, not many people can be candidates for laser surgery. also, those who have had it done, they experience post-op reactions such as increased sensitivity to sunlight (therefore needing sunglasses) and night time vision distortions and will require night time driving glasses. so there will always be a need for optometrists and corrective lenses (glasses or contacts). but to be financially successful, you need to be able to sell glasses, not just exams, in any environment.

there is a growing concern for the future of this industry (going away from "momma-papa" offices to more corporate (lenscrafters) settings ) and there will always be people out there that will complain, some are justified and some are mindless rantings. just do your research before you make a big move like this.

hope this helps.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
KHE said:
I will give you my opinions, for whatever they're worth.

Many managed care plans don't accept providers who aren't MDs or DOs.
The vast majority do accept ODs as providers according to my Dad, a practicing optometrist for over 30 years. However they pay ODs less than MDs for the exact same thing.
 
stevec said:
The vast majority do accept ODs as providers according to my Dad, a practicing optometrist for over 30 years. However they pay ODs less than MDs for the exact same thing.
It is important to not make sweeping generalizations. This is a state by state issue. In Washington State, for example, it is illegal to exclude an OD on an open panel. If the panel is indeed closed, then new MD's would be excluded also. I have never had any trouble getting on an insurance panel, and in fact, I turn down several offers to join panels every month. Paying an OD less than an MD for the same procedure code is also illegal in my state. We have had some insurance companies try, but they have lost every time. I can't speak about every state except I do know that California OD's have some trouble getting on medical panels. My point is that not every state has this problem for OD's.
 
Top