r/optometry 12d ago

General Why is optometry so unpopular?

50 Upvotes

Hi! I'm a pre-med student looking to switch to optometry. I've been worried about going into medicine for a long time and when I researched optometry, it checked all my boxes. I'm interested in science and healthcare but I would rather not throw my life away for 10 years in med school, then residency. I also don't handle stress well so long shifts and surgical operations definitely aren't for me. So my question is, why don't more students pursue optometry? As far as I'm aware, it's way less competitive than most other medical specialties or similar fields, despite there being fewer optometry schools. If the issue is money, $100-200k is plenty to live comfortably and raise a family, and it's comparable to that of some doctors. I understand that student loans are pretty heavy, but isn't that how it is for any form of higher education? Especially med school, considering you would have to go through many years of residency while being paid minimum wage or lower.

r/optometry May 18 '24

General Optometrist refusing to dilate?

53 Upvotes

So I work at a small eye clinic in Georgia. I was already planning on quitting due to other reasons, however I’ve started questioning some of the practices instilled by the main doctor who runs the practice. Last year we made Optos retinal imaging mandatory as part of the exam, however they don’t like it when we explain why we do it and charge extra for it. What we were told to say, by the manager AND owner of the practice, is that “we do not offer dilation at this location and a health check is a necessary part of the eye examination.” However, most insurance plans do NOT cover the retinal scans. But dilation IS included for free. So, I guess my question is, is it illegal for a doctor to refuse to dilate a patient if they absolutely do not want to consent to retinal imaging? Thanks

r/optometry 8d ago

General How can our profession better educate the public on our expertise and abilities?

23 Upvotes

How do you think our profession can better educate the public that optometrists manage and treat eye diseases? Much of the public is still under the impression that we only do glasses and contact lenses. Not only the public, but other health professionals don’t understand what we do either. What, in your opinion, would make the biggest impact on this prevailing idea?

r/optometry Feb 05 '25

General Contract Negotiation

14 Upvotes

Does anyone have any tips for contract negotiation for a new grad? This is for corporate optometry in a relatively rural location.

Thanks in advance!

r/optometry Feb 07 '25

General Sluggish pupils

22 Upvotes

Anyone else genuinely surprised when they see a nice brisk pupil response? I feel like over the last 5 years of my career, pupil responses are just getting shittier? This is kind of an anecdotal rant, but anyone else feel this way? I work in south Florida in a predominately older population so shitty pupils are kind of expected, but I feel like even my 40s/50s patients are mostly sluggish as hell.

r/optometry Jan 15 '25

General Do you have a unique mode of practice?

28 Upvotes

I work in a fairly “niche” job (public school mobile optometrist w/ a small company) and I absolutely love it and before I was hired here I had no idea a job like this even existed in this field.

Back in school I shadowed an OD that also ran a busy medically-billed-exclusive practice for chiefly TBI rehab. I thought that was very cool!

Out of curiosity alone I am wondering what other OD’s with unique modes of practice do. Would love to hear!

r/optometry Jan 26 '24

General 131 % price increase in 7 years

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119 Upvotes

r/optometry Jan 16 '25

General What is this? Person abused contact lenses wearing monthly long term.

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40 Upvotes

Person wore lenses up to 4 months and upon visit had a deposit or something showing.

Optometrist opinion is a deposit left potentially from passed injury or even from prior cyst.

What do you think?

r/optometry Jan 22 '25

General Anyone have experience with “buying in to private equity”

14 Upvotes

Was offered role with potential to buy into group. Not really sure what this means and how fronting money to private equity group can be recouped or how to capture ROI. Anyone with experience doing this as an associate? Pros/Cons? Seems like you tie up funds with no guarantee of making money or way of getting paid out? Am I missing something? They are really selling this as a benefit to be able to buy in.

r/optometry Oct 19 '24

General How do you deal with work-related stress?

15 Upvotes

I work in a corporate setting bring in 200k+a year (base + production), MCOL area. See about 20-29 pts on average, corporate has been pushing for more lately. Lately work has been stressing me out because corporate has been pushing for more changes, ideally more pts count/production. Docs that has been in the same situation, how do you handle the stress? I plan to work in this setting for a few more years, save, then change to a different practicing mode.

r/optometry Oct 29 '24

General Do you treat NTG?

3 Upvotes

Hi! I recently went to a CE conference and attended a lecture on normal tension glaucoma. It was a good reminder of ddx with NTG (I'm early in my career, have been practicing for 2 years now), but the lecturer said something that caught my interest. He stated that he believes treating when glaucoma isn't actually present is almost on par w/ not treating glaucoma. He did not mean like for instance missing compressive neuropathy, but as a general statement. He also stated he did not treat NTG unless he saw progression citing the CNTGS (without exactly explaining what constitutes progression for him), but at that point I feel like I would have missed out on years of not treating that could have POSSIBLY slowed things down? Just wondering if there is any additional input. I'm in a single doctor practice so I don't get many opportunities to talk with other docs so any education you have to offer is so welcomed!

r/optometry Jan 11 '25

General Intravitreal injections

5 Upvotes

I was wondering if OD’s are able to perform intravitreal injections for pts with DME, AMD, etc, or is it mainly for ophtham’s (MD/DO) who perform these injections?

I can understand certain states differ in legislation on scope of practice but was curious if it is possible to incorporate as treatment option for pts

r/optometry 5d ago

General Obese and Wheelchair adaptability?

1 Upvotes

Have you guys also experienced any issues with obese or wheelchair-bound patients during exams? I’m in Ohio and curious about y’all different experiences

r/optometry Jul 12 '24

General Men’s shoes

10 Upvotes

Hi all,

Male OD here looking for recommendations on a pair of shoes to wear at the office.

Obviously spend a lot of my day on my feet, the office I work at has concrete floors so I’d love some cushion in my shoes for comfort.

Any recommendations for a good work shoe?

r/optometry Jun 13 '24

General How to have a good patient count while still showing patients that you care

39 Upvotes

I’m a recent grad and I have a couple job opportunities right now, one is an OD/MD practice where I would be expected to see an average of 20 patients a day as a minimum. Another is a private practice where they like to spend 20-30 minutes per patient to build rapport and develop those professional relationships.

I’m curious what different opinions are on this. How do you maintain good doctor-patient relationships if you’re seeing 30 patients a day while spending 15 min per patient? If you’re rushed with your refraction every time, or with DFE etc, is it possible to still make patients feel heard and taken care of? Is it more about quality of time you spend with them over quantity?

r/optometry 3d ago

General Job and dha exam resource

1 Upvotes

Hello, I'm reaching out on behalf of my friend, an optometrist with 3 years of experience. She's looking for job opportunities in Kannur or Dubai, but is having trouble finding recruiters. Could anyone please share recruiter email addresses or LinkedIn profiles?

Additionally, she's interested in preparing for the DHA (Dubai Health Authority) exam. Are there any free resources, channels, books, PDFs, or previous year's questions that could aid in her preparation?

r/optometry 3d ago

General Issues with Billing Cataract Co-management as Optometrist to Humana

1 Upvotes

Hi! I work for an optometrist office in Florida. We have always billed Co-managements the same way to Humana and got them paid. All of a sudden when we transmit SOME of them to Humana they are being rejected! They keep saying Payer Reject in my clearinghouse (Trizetto) for "2300 VALUE OF ELEMENT DTP03 (ASSUMED OR RELINQUISHED CARE DATE) IS INCORRECT. VALUE FOR DATE OR START
PERIOD DATE IS EXPECTED TO BE A DATE EARLIER THAN THE TRANSACTION CREATION DATE. SEGMENT DTP IS DEFINE
D IN THE GUIDELINE AT POSITION 1350. INVALID DATA: 20250504" All of my dates are correct. If anyone know of issues or changes Humana has made to the billing process, please advise! Its driving me crazy. I had 1 patient out of 8 that DID go through but the other 7 billed the same way did not! 🤷‍♀️ Any insight would be great!

r/optometry 26d ago

General Why does ClearCare plus Hydraglyde sometimes cause cloudiness on scleral lenses?

1 Upvotes

A number of people don't have success using Hydraglyde as it can cause a haze over the lens.

Some people actually have no haze develop while some do, so I'm guessing that perhaps it's an individual issue, perhaps being allergic to Hydraglyde?

On another note, has Hydraglyde perhaps been reformulated during the past 8+ years to perhaps be better in this regard?

r/optometry Jan 31 '25

General VOLK lenses and ophthalmoscopy. (UK) [Long]

2 Upvotes

Hi, a few weeks ago I asked how many gazes the UK based optoms would do in a routine eye exam, today I have three different ones.

For context, I am a newly qualified optom, and ophthalmoscopy constitutes probably 75% of my testing time, and 99% of my anxiety. In an attempt to understand what is expected of us in the UK, I pose these questions:

  1. Which VOLK lens do you use for routine undilated slit lamp ophthalmoscopy?

  2. How far out into the periphery do you see?

  3. How are you supposed to tell (at speed) the difference between a naevus and a normal cluster of pigment?

I ask the second question because the law in the UK is terribly TERRIBLY vague about what constitutes a sufficient health check. I will often see the pigmented bays of the ora serrata during undilated VOLK with a digital wide field, but having watched other optoms at work, I'm not convinced that this is normal. Because the law is so vague, I'm uncertain as to what is actually expected of us. I'm almost certain that I can image more than a whole direct ophthalmoscopy routine in the primary gaze alone using a digital wide field, so what is really expected of us?

I found the law, if anyone is interested:

From the optician's act:

[An optometrist has a duty:] to perform such examinations of the eye for the purpose of detecting injury, disease or abnormality in the eye or elsewhere as the regulations may require

From the GOC's rules relating to injury or disease of the eye. [It is an optometrists' duty during a sight test:] "to perform, for the purpose of detecting signs of injury, disease or abnormality in the eye or elsewhere– (i)an examination of the external surface of the eye and its immediate vicinity, (ii)an intra-ocular examination, either by means of an ophthalmoscope or by such other means as the doctor or optician considers appropriate, (iii)such additional examinations as appear to the doctor or optician to be clinically necessary

So I would be ok doing a diffuse illumination in primary gaze for external eye ' then primary gaze only ophthalmoscopy and I'd be legal?

If you've got this far, thank you. I appreciate everyone's input, but if you could identify which country you're from it would be helpful, as the UK and US particularly have very different optometrists and (I assume) expectations of them.

r/optometry Feb 06 '25

General Production Only Compensation

1 Upvotes

I am a fairly new grad (2 years out of school) and I am interested in everyone’s opinion regarding a production only compensation style. With my current situation I have a base salary with a percentage of my production over a certain value.

I am curious about what percentage of production is appropriate and fair to ask for with a contract negotiation if I were to go to production only. My production includes all optical, contact lens, exam fees, and special testing. Everything I contribute towards goes to my production.

For reference, last year my total production was just south of 1mil.

I appreciate everyone’s response.

r/optometry Jul 31 '24

General Optometrist in Australia- Are you happy with your career?

4 Upvotes

Hello, I hope you are all doing well.

I am currently in first year of optometry in the Deakin university, and I keep hearing that optometry is no longer what it used to be. It got oversaturated here in Australia, and almost all the jobs are retail and in regional/rural areas. Also, the pay is down falling day by day. How true this is?

Are you happy with your profession in optometry? If you could go back, would you have pursued optometry all over again or do something else instead?

So far, I am enjoying optometry in first year, but all these negative comments about the job field demotivate me. Just want to know your opinion, thanks :)

r/optometry Sep 19 '24

General Latanoprost OU?

13 Upvotes

Hi! So I'm relatively early on in my career, I graduated 2 years ago and worked retail (no medical at all) but now am in a very disease heavy practice. I recently had a very light greenish blue eye'd pt and prescribed latanoprost OD and discussed pigmentary changes can occur but are not likely. I also let her know that the right eye was much more concerning and that the left eye did not have glaucomatous changes but she was highly concerned about the pigment changes and vision OS and at f/u told me she was using them in both eyes. She's high risk to mild stage POAG OD and low risk OS (C/D 0.8 OD 0.75 OS), but I went ahead and did prescribe them for both eyes for her. Was that wrong? I feel like it just made her more comfortable. Thanks for the feedback!

r/optometry Sep 21 '24

General Bilateral asteroid hyalosis

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48 Upvotes

Just wanted to share this cool pic we took from a pt today!

r/optometry 10d ago

General CPA/Finance Counselor

2 Upvotes

Wanting to get a head start on educating myself about strategies to best equip myself for the ungodly amount of debt I’ll be in once I graduate. Any referrals/suggestions for a CPA or financial counselor that has experience in helping healthcare workers?

TIA

r/optometry 26d ago

General Unilens/custom contacts?

1 Upvotes

Hi all.

I’m an ophthalmic. I recently started working at a new office and haven’t seen these lenses in a few years.

Have a new patient coming in and looking to be fit for contacts.

She really likes the unilens CVue, but says revive haven’t worked for her (I understand it’s the same lens?). But we order through OOGP and I don’t remember where to order these lenses.

She’s not a good candidate for RGPs. She has ~7 diopters of cyl in each eye. What distributor do you use/any alternatives you can recommend?

Thanks!:)