Well, how much does an optometrist make? Well an optometrist's salary is really dependent
and varied on the places in which they work. So some of the places which optometrists can
work can be in a hospital setting, like an HMO, they can be in a private practice where
you're essentially your own boss. You can be in a group practice where you have multiple
optometrists working together. Some optometrists are employed by surgeons called ophthalmologists.
Some optometrists choose to work in a more retail setting and there are other optometrists
that choose to work within the industry, and so they work as consultants to contact lens
manufacturers or lens manufacturers. And so because there's a wide range of jobs optometrists
can carry, the salary range is pretty wide too. So that range is usually somewhere between
eighty thousand to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. Now most optometrists, when
they first get their foot in the door, their salary is at the lower end of that range until
they've entered the profession and have been there for awhile and their earning potential
goes up. Obviously optometrists that work in private practices or group practices may
have a higher ceiling, relative to other optometrists that work within a hospital system. The field
is definitely growing because of the aging population here in the States. You know the
need for vision care will always be there and so therefore the need for optometrists
will continue to grow.