OD office staffing

[rpames]

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I was just courious about how many staff you all have seen in OD offices. More specifically I'm interested in private practice offices with only one or so ODs.

If you could just tell me how many ODs were working there, the normal number of patients per day or week, if the office had an in house lab...and if you know, what is the office's gross income.

Thanks,
rpames

 

[Petec]

The practice I worked at this summer had three OD's (One who owned the office) Besides the owner OD, one of them was a vision therapist. They all worked about 35 hours per week there (all fairly young too, five to ten years out of opt school or so).

For the other staff lets see:
*contact lense specialist there every other day
*fulltime receptionist
*fulltime office manager
*Two opticians
*and two other "all purpose" people who helped with secretarial work, finances, and initial vision tests.

The office was two 2 story buildings that were located in a suburban college town. (One buildin strictly for the vision therapist)

I would say individually, each doctor spent about 30 minutes with a typical patient and saw maybe 40 to 60 patients per week? just an estimate though.

I have no idea what the gross earnings for the office was though

 

[rpames]

Thanks a lot Petec.

Does anyone else have any info?

 

[eyedream82]

i work for an opthalmologist and an optometrist in the same office. Our staff is 10 people including me (1 optician, an OD, an MD, and 7 technicians/assistants). The OD gets around 6-8 patients a day on average. He works 40 hrs/wk and doesn't open on weekends. A lot of his patients are new patients, i would say that he gets at least 3 new patients in a day. He's only been out of school for a little over 10 years now. The ophthalmologist gets around 30 patients a day. A lot of them are established and some new...mostly comes back for Rechecks like IOP, Post Op Refraction, Viral Conj check, Iritis, etc., etc.

I would say that for a city that has an optometry school and mostly saturated with ODs, that's a pretty good volume of patient for the OD. I mean, that's just the examination part...not to mention contact lens sells and glasses too. Lots of patients are interested in Corrective Refractive Therapy (CRT) and so that's a new expansion.

 

[r_salis]

Originally posted by eyedream82
Lots of patients are interested in Corrective Refractive Therapy (CRT) and so that's a new expansion.

What is CRT, is it a branch of VT?

 

[eyedream82]

Originally posted by r_salis
What is CRT, is it a branch of VT?

VT i'm assuming is vision therapy. yes it is a vision therapy. actually it is corneal refractive therapy not corrective like i said earlier. this website explains it real well: http://www.joneseyecenters.com/index.cfm/procedures/crt

 

[r_salis]

Originally posted by eyedream82
VT i'm assuming is vision therapy. yes it is a vision therapy. actually it is corneal refractive therapy not corrective like i said earlier. this website explains it real well: http://www.joneseyecenters.com/index.cfm/procedures/crt

CRT = orthokeratology/"ortho-k", a popular test question chez nous. 😉

 

[eyedream82]

good deal, i'll keep that in mind 😎

 

[HighlyFanatic]

rpames,

the OD i worked with had an interesting setup. tuesday, thursday, saturdays he worked in his mall practise. (Every other day he had another OD hired to work). He had a full dispensary, optician, receptionist, 2 other assistants, and saw about 3 patients an hour. Saturdays he never saw less than 15 patients, most days he saw about 20 patients (shadowing was relly an experience there).

His other practise was downtown, where he worked mostly (mwf), and that was a group practise with 3 other OD's. I cant remember, but for each OD there were roughly 3-4 employees. He usally saw 2-3 patients an hour, and was very thorough...he sometimes skipped lunch/breaks, need be, to ensure the patient was completly taken care of from the moment they entered to when they left.

 

[rpames]

Thanks HF.

 

[Tony.]

rpames,

I've worked with two OD's; I was their optometric tech for a while before I relocated. (the OD's were mother and son) they have been in business for about 20 years. They saw about 20-30 patients each day with 3 rooms in the building. They make their own glasses in the store and they have about 3 sales people working the floor and one optician is in the back, busy making glasses (they also had about 2 receptionists) They manage pretty good but are looking to hire another optometrist for the extra help. They sell top line glasses such as Gucci, DC and Cartier, they gross about $1,000,000+/yr. I have to admit though, they both love what they do and have tons of family support. I was very lucky to work with them as I learned not only about eye management, but a whole other aspect of business....
to answer your question, 2 OD's is enough to see 20+ pts./day

 

[silverandblack]

Originally posted by HighlyFanatic
rpames,

the OD i worked with had an interesting setup. tuesday, thursday, saturdays he worked in his mall practise. (Every other day he had another OD hired to work). He had a full dispensary, optician, receptionist, 2 other assistants, and saw about 3 patients an hour. Saturdays he never saw less than 15 patients, most days he saw about 20 patients (shadowing was relly an experience there).

His other practise was downtown, where he worked mostly (mwf), and that was a group practise with 3 other OD's. I cant remember, but for each OD there were roughly 3-4 employees. He usally saw 2-3 patients an hour, and was very thorough...he sometimes skipped lunch/breaks, need be, to ensure the patient was completly taken care of from the moment they entered to when they left.

Hey HF, I was just wondering who this OD is? Where are his offices?? I'm in Etown for a brief stay, and I'm just a little curious.
Btw, thanx for all those OD stats from the States... money isn't everything, but they are very helpful stats nonetheless.

silverandblack

 

[eyedream82]

just to add on to what anothertony was saying, i think that optometry is really what you want to make of it. Tony gave a good example of how you can make a lot of money selling glasses and contact lens in addition to just being the optometrist. i talked to a lot of local optometrists and that is what they told me. Maintaining a reasonable volume of patient is important to keep you in business but it's really the selling of lens wear that gives you the bonus points. From what i know, this is relevant if you are in a private practice of course. If you are with wal-mart or with a commercial place, i'm not so sure.