How many patients a day do you as an optometrist? Do you feel you have enough time with each one or do you feel rushed?

[Grateful and Blessed]

How many patients a day do you see as an optometrist? Do you feel you have enough time with each one or do you feel rushed? Do you feel you can take an hour or lunch or need to work through lunch? Is the interest from your student loans making your payments seem futile, as in your total due is currently more than the original amount owed despite paying some of it off? Not trying to be a downer just trying to see what everyone's biggest pain points are or maybe they are overblown?

The best info I could find was 25 to 30pts a day which is approx 15 min a piece including documentation, which just made my head spin, which just didn't add up.

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[Grateful and Blessed]

Thank you for your honest reply. My own optometrist(owns his own practice and ready to retire) discouraged me from the profession, which sort of blew my mind. While shadowing I watched an award winning optometrist, top of their field rush through their lunch at an OMD practice. I just read a post on here about someone making 200k and 2hr lunches most days, was just compiling data points to see which is true.

Serious question. Does care seem too rushed, inadequate and even a bit scary with the limited time for the volume of patients? After all, you license is on the line with each pt . Maybe I'm a worry wart but this stuff weighs on me. Maybe there is something I'm missing that makes this workable that I can't see.

 

[KHE]

I see about 25 patients a day. With proper tech support, (and experience) it is not difficult. I can understand how/why a new graduate may not be able to achieve that kind of volume comfortably. I always get my full lunch, frequently more than an hour and I never leave late.

 

[optoburg]

I see 25-35/ day and take a 2 hour lunch every day. With good techs and efficient ehr use it’s no big deal. I’m 3 years out of school and my student loan payment constitutes about 5% of what I make. The pace can be intense at times and it is something you work up to, I didn’t start seeing that many my first year out but now it’s no big deal

 

[qwopty99]

Definitely lower than the numbers others are quoting here. I slowed down a lot after Covid because we wanted (1) less traffic in the office and (2) to be more deliberate about cleaning between patients. I started to enjoy the slower pace and have not gone back to my pre-Covid rate.

 

[Ryan_eyeball]

Around 10-12 patients a day in a commercial Walmart setting. Kansas is tough to license in and its not a desirable state to live in either so the district managers leave us Optometrists alone. Within 60 miles half of the 14 Walmarts have no Optometrist. I've done fill in work examining up to 25-35 a day and I couldn't imagine doing it day in and out. The -2.00 myope that's 20 years old is easy but start filling up with talkative older patients with a lot of comorbidities including dilating everyone and 30 patients is stressful (at least to me).

Gross this year 220k overhead expenses including health care costs about $40k. I'll clear around $180k this year which is up from last year. I just use a part time summer secretary/tech for 3 months a year & my wife helps out with scheduling from home. She also fills in on busy days.

My scenario is not typical but works for me.

 

[franklin2350]

Are optometrist salaries increasing? How hard is it to make over 200k as an optometrist? With scope expansions, is optometry being more in demand and will one day be able to do lasik? if anyone could comment.

 

[optoburg]

Are optometrist salaries increasing? How hard is it to make over 200k as an optometrist? With scope expansions, is optometry being more in demand and will one day be able to do lasik? if anyone could comment.

You don’t need to do Lasik to make 200k. As an associate you can make 200k but you will work for it. As a sublease owner that should be pretty easy, as a private practice owner the sky is the limit

 

[optohopeful123]

As an associate you can make 200k but you will work for it. As a sublease owner that should be pretty easy

sorry for the ignorance as i am just a first year OD student, but what's the difference between the two? and in your experience, what's the max that you can make either as an associate or sublease owner?

 

[optoburg]

sorry for the ignorance as i am just a first year OD student, but what's the difference between the two? and in your experience, what's the max that you can make either as an associate or sublease owner?

As an associate the best pay scheme is a percentage of production so you will get between 15-20% of whatever you produce. I feel like the most I have heard of a single doc doing is 2M so theoretically you could max out as an associate at 400k. Most people will do around750-1.25M so that is what I would expect for an established associate pay (113k on the low end and 250k on the high end). A sublease is when a doctor next to Walmart or LensCrafters ect rents office space from the corp and sees patients and just gets exam fees.

 

[zyg0te]

About 18/day. It's manageable but also really easy to fall behind. I give most patients all the time they want/need/deserve, but it's also why I un-apolgetically fall behind.

I always take my full lunch. I'll stay a bit late some days for charting or calling patients back, but getting the full lunch hour is important to me.