2025 Optometrist Survey Thoughts

Eyes in Eyecare produces an annual report from surveying practicing optometrists in the USA and Canada. This year, they summed up their survey by stating, "Overall, optometrists in 2025 are engaged with advocacy efforts and new innovations in the field, with their average awareness and adoption rate of new eyecare innovations higher than 2024 averages. Overall debt among respondents is lower than that reported in the 2024 survey, and the current average salary has risen; however, optometrists’ confidence in their ability to pay off their student loans has remained unchanged."

In the survey, 63% of respondents were female and 52% work in private practice. Only 26% had completed a residency and only 32% considered themselves to be the practice owner. Do these numbers surprise you? They do not surprise me. When I entered optometry school over 30 years ago, my class of 100 students was 50% female and in the 2025 entering class the percentage has increased to 73%. I do see a disconnect in these statistics between the number of female respondents and the number of practice owners. Why are these two statistics dissimilar? Do less female OD's want to own their own practices? I don't think that is the case, but rather the fact that many recent graduates prefer to practice in a group setting. I think there is a lot of wisdom in this choice. When I was in a solo private practice, there were many challenges with work/life balance. A group practice solves many of these issues! So, my assumption is that more work in group private practices rather than solo private practices in 2025.

Another interesting statistic in the Eyecare survey is the amount of money that OD's spend on marketing each month. Fully 50% spend less than $500 per month. Marketing experts suggest that you spend 3% of gross income on marketing monthly. If we know that the average private practice grosses $750,000 annually then they should be spending $1,875 monthly. If you've ever spoken to an entrepreneur about their "customer acquisition costs" you'd find that even 3% is a low bar to meet and OD's are still falling very short of this number. Why do you think this is the case? With 43% of patients walking out of their offices without filling their Rx, would increased marketing reverse this increasing trend?

The current OD salary reported was $178,717.00. This represents an increase from last year. Recent grads report that their first jobs paid approximately $103K. In my mind, these are solid income levels, but we know that student debt continues to weigh heavy on recent graduates. Most graduates incur approximately $200K in debt by the time they earn their OD degree. Do these salaries allow them to manage this debt? Well, according to the survey, it does. On a scale of 1 to 5, respondents are 4.1 or very confident in their ability to repay this debt. This is a good thing! I would be remiss if I didn't say that I do think that student debt is too high. But thankfully, for our profession, we are able to manage it at this level. Happily 71% of respondents said that if they had the opportunity to do it all over again...they would still choose optometry.

I wish all of the OD's out there a very happy and successful 2026!