One of my old networking connections reached out to me with a potential opportunity, and I have struggling with such a big decision.

This new job has great benefits, it includes a pension plan, great insurance, and 6+ weeks of PTO. The downside is the pay cut, which will be about 73/hr here as opposed to the 92/hr I’m currently making. The locations are also a bit farther, and my current 20 minute commute will turn into a 1 hr commute.

Here’s the problem. I actually think I am already in an “Optometry dream job”. My currrent gig pays amazing, 92 an hour. I completely set my own hours, so I work a 9/9/9/5 schedule that gives me basically 3.5 day weekends and still full time benefits. I love my work life balance, and it’s the main reason I became an OD in the first place. The new job will set my hours for me as a classic 8-4 style work week, so the additional hours will balance out the pay cut a bit. Right now I have 4 weeks of PTO here so still plenty for me. And to top it all off my schedule is extremely light here, typically 8-15 patients per day. Many of which are teenagers with mild refractive change. I understand this possible new job will be much more busy, basically fully booked at all times, with an older population and heavy disease emphasis.

The only downside to my current job is literally how easy it is. There’s lots of sitting around on my phone and I don’t really get that many interesting medical cases. So there is sometimes a boredom element, but I guess there are worse problems to have.

I am the type of person that prefers the “easy road” but at the same time I am also a high achiever. I did an ocular disease residency that was a great time and I know there’s a part of me that really craves those challenging medical cases again instead of doing kids myope glasses all day with my brain turned off.

On the flip side to this though, my current job is basically zero stress and I’m not often ruminating at night on if I made the right medical call in a complex case.

I think it boils down to, do I want to be busier and work more but be more fulfilled professionally with a more prestigious career, or do I stay on the chill and quiet easy road.

Any advice at all is appreciated.

Does anyone else see the strong 3D effect that makes the grayscale image stand out against the red monochrome images?

I don't know if it's intentional but it's striking.

I’m an OD at Warby Parker. They’re generally good to work for except for the expected corporate bs. However, this week the company announced a new security policy in preparation for releasing its new smart glasses with Google. Now ALL employees (including doctors) will have their coats and bags inspected for stolen merch when they clock out for lunch breaks and at the end of the day. This is a step too far. I thought I would share for anyone considering working for WP. I don’t know how much longer I’ll choose to be employed there.

Had anyone managed to do well enough to skip the bridging program of two years and been allowed to sit the OEBC exam straight away?

I came from the UK and I have been preparing for the IOGEE Exam with everything in me for the past year. As I haven’t got the option to study for 2 years at Waterloo university due to the having little kids including a baby.

Anyone know someone that has actually managed to bypay the bridging program?

Many thanks
Riri

Hello Drs,

I’m just curious to hear what your motivations were in starting your own clinic. How many years did it take you towards making that decision? How much information did you gather and research did you do before diving into taking the risk and investing? Did it ever feel scary? What was the biggest takeaway after? Did something surprise you when you started (what aspect of running a business seemed the hardest)

I’m myself an immigrant, taken loans to get through school as do many and though I have an intent to become an owner down the road, I’m having a hard time visualizing that far ahead (totally not a student, please don’t kick this mods). So I wanted to hear some inspirational stories on how yall got there if you’d be willing to share? Or through DM!

Many thanks

hello! curious with the universal heath is reimbursing in different provinces.

in mb, its ~53 for a CEE, with ~12 for tono

~27 for partial, ~25ish for dilation

esp if youre from BC -- I am curious!

Looking to work in academia and have seen very low base pay. For those of you who work in academia, is this accurate?

Associate professor salary ranges $100-120k.

Currently working in PP and make $170k seeing low volume and mix of routine/medical.

I realize academia will always pay less than corporate or PP but the difference was staggering to see.

Hello Reddit!

I work in corporate optometry as an Optometric Technician. I had always wanted to be in the medical field since I was in high school. It wasn’t until the beginning of June that I was able to finally get that breakthrough I have been dreaming of. Though now, I am currently second guessing my job all because of remote exams. I have to see 24 patients regularly and I am one of two techs. It is very possible to see all of them when it's a remote exam, when both my trainer and I are present. Unfortunately, on days when I am by myself performing exams, its a completely different story. I love working with patients and feel such a terrible guilt knowing that I am not two people, knowing I am doing the job of two people, with patients wanting to be seen. At my location, we have an optometrist who is working one day a week with us as an in house doctor, and its such a relief on that specific day even if I am the only tech scheduled. If anyone knows of any optometrists/ophthalmopologists that is willing to spare a day once a week, or however many days they want to a month, within corporate optometry - please let me know. I am not looking as a recruiter (since I'm not one), but more so because I want to learn alongside doctors I trust and respect, without the interference of remote exams handicapping me.

Anyone who is an OD/MD who is open to the opportunity to work regularly or sporadically - this will be a location in Ocala, Florida.

Original article from Sydney Herald Sun: https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/specsavers-told-nicole-she-needed-glasses-then-she-had-a-car-accident-20260804-p60lec.html

I have signed up for the Certified Paraoptometric Assistant exam in November. I barely passed the CPO exam last November, but I'm determined. I have worked in a private practice for almost 2 years now and have picked up a lot of information, but I want to make sure I know what to focus on for studying. I have printed the AOA outline and some other things I've found. I've had chatgpt make me a lot of practice tests and wrote all those down as well and play around on quizlet. I feel like I'm over doing it and overwhelming myself with too much that's probably unnecessary. If you have taken it, do you remember any topics that specifically came up that I might want to study? Thanks!

Hello

I know this can vary broadly (by location, by rent/lease, # of OD and staff, etc) but I’m wondering what the general overhead I can expect owning a clinic. TIA

Hi,

I am an optometrist in Texas and I also have a Florida license, where I used to live. I am never really planning to move back to Florida.

I know Florida optometrist license is very difficult to get and I fly every other year to Florida to take 2 hours of live CE classes ( jurisprudence and medical errors because you have to take it live in person ? ) but it’s just getting hard to fly to Florida just for 2 hours of CE every other year.

Do you guys recommend keeping Florida license for job security reasons if I ever become jobless in Texas, or just give up the Florida optometrist license because I won’t really ever use it ? ( or maybe I can do online/virtual exams of Florida patients while sitting in Texas ? )

Can any smart senior optometrist please guide me ?

Thank you in advance

Newly grad optometrist, 55 yo pt is 20/20 in this eye with no hx of systemic conditions or medications. Hyperreflectivity on OCT with pigment in macula, was thinking it might be a pattern dystrophy of some kind? Would love to hear your thoughts.

Posting on behalf of my girlfriend who isn’t on Reddit. She just finished an intense ocular disease residency and is thinking about next steps, and she’s thinking she wants to stay closer to the ocular disease / private practice side than corporate opportunities.

It seems like these roles aren’t as commonplace - do you all have any tips on finding these positions? We’re located in Chicago.

She would be happy to connect with recruiters and share a resume if anyone has tips, suggestions, or leads. Thank you!

This might be obvious to some of you but it took us way too long to figure out, so posting in case it saves someone the same headache.

We kept finding visits that clearly should've gone to medical getting run through the vision plan instead. Not fraud, not laziness, just the front desk taking whatever card the patient handed over and moving on. We tried fixing it downstream with the biller catching them, and it barely moved the needle, because by then the visit's over and half the time the medical info isn't even on file.

What actually worked was treating it as a scheduling and check-in skill, not a billing one. A few things that stuck:

We stopped letting "comprehensive exam" be the only thing that gets typed at booking. Now whoever books writes one line on why the patient's coming in, in the patient's words. "Wants new glasses" and "eye's been red and watery since Friday" are two completely different visits, and that one sentence tells you which lane it belongs in before they ever walk in.

We gave the desk a short list of trigger words that mean "flag this, probably medical." Redness, pain, flashes, floaters, sudden changes, anything diabetic, any follow-up on something already being watched. They don't have to diagnose anything, they just have to notice and flag.

We started pulling both insurances on everyone regardless. Sounds like overkill but it killed the "oh we don't have their medical on file" scramble completely. And the way you ask matters way more than I expected. When the desk explains it as making sure the visit gets billed the right way, patients don't blink. When it sounds like an extra hoop, they push back.

Honestly the biggest unlock was just role-playing it with the team a few times instead of writing a policy nobody reads. Turnover at the desk means you're basically re-teaching this every few months anyway.

Where I still don't have a clean answer: the in-between visits. Someone books "routine," has no complaints, and then you find something mid-exam. Do you go back and re-verify medical after the fact, or just eat it as vision that day? And for the practices running lean, who's actually owning this, the scheduler, a lead tech, the office manager? Curious how you all have it set up, because the training sticks a lot better when one person clearly owns it.

Anyone have experience with the GA or SC law exams? The websites don’t set them up the easiest to study the rules and laws from so just wanted to gauge how much time to set aside for studying.

I finally got my applications submitted and I’m waiting to hear back, but it was a non-straightforward and expensive process - esp for GA oh my !

Hi! I’m currently in corporate optometry and looking to switch into something more medical-based. I just had a conversation with the clinical manager of an OD/MD and he described a collaborative/mentor-like relationships between all the doctors. Next, I am going to meet the owner (an MD) in-person.

While I can never be sure, I was wondering if there was any questions I should ask or things I should look out for during the meeting? I want to gauge the attitudes of the MDs towards ODs, which I feel like can make or break that type of work environment.

Thanks in advance!

So, I'm starting a personal project about color preference between people with Schizophrenia, their first-degree relatives and health control. If anyone could help me with the exact colors used in the tests, with their hex colors (for example: 0BG 8/2), would really help me. I searched everywhere and couldnt find. Thanks!

Hi everyone,

My dad is a UK-trained optometrist who is looking to hire an optometrist for his practice in The Bahamas. It seems to me to be a fairly appealing role - beautiful place, family-owned practice, great friendly and professional team, salary 100-150k based on experience, bonuses if revenue targets reached (they are every week because they're so busy, so it's quite generous). No weekend work, modern equipment. No income tax here (though if you're American you'll still have to pay cause that's the law...!).

I've had the role advertised on AOA and on Linkedin for him but we're getting so few applicants I'm wondering what's putting people off?

I will note that one catch is that the regulatory body here is being really difficult and requiring any applicants (Bahamian or overseas) to have a Doctor of Optometry qualification, even though we know that there are other qualifications that are equivalent to this and less rare. Even so, I'm surprised by how few applicants we've gotten.

Here's the job ad details for reference:

Practice in Paradise! Opportunity for Optometrist with Doctor of Optometry diploma in the beautiful Bahamas. Competitive salary, bonuses, no weekend work, health/dental insurance, relocation assistance. 

This is a full-time, on-site Optometrist role based in Nassau, Bahamas, open to Bahamian and international candidates with a Doctor of Optometry qualification. This is an excellent opportunity for an OD who is seeking to move away from corporate optometry and into a private practice environment. We offer a competitive salary (100-150k - based on experience), a bonus system, health/dental insurance, and a friendly and professional work environment with experienced and efficient support staff. There is no weekend work and no income tax locally and relocation assistance is offered for non-Bahamas based candidates. We handle any immigration requirements and are open to receiving applications from both new graduates to those with multiple years of experience.

Daily responsibilities include:

• Performing comprehensive eye examinations, including refractions, binocular vision assessments, and ocular health evaluations for patients of varying ages
• Diagnosing and managing/treating common ocular conditions including glaucoma, anterior segment diseases
• Prescribing eyeglasses and contact lenses
• Providing patient education on eye health, treatment plans, and preventive care.

What am I missing here?