Every year, new data trickles in about what optometrists are doing, earning, prescribing, and pushing for, and it’s easy to lose sight of where you stand in the mix. Consider this a quick tour through the latest benchmarks.
OCT-A adoption
According to the 2025 Retina Report from Eyes on Eyecare, 27.79% of 403 surveyed ODs said their practice doesn’t have OCT-A, meaning roughly 7 in 10 do. Among users, Zeiss Cirrus and Heidelberg Spectralis were commonly cited in the survey’s brand list. Source: 2025 Retina Report
Pediatric myopia management
About 7 in 10 U.S. providers now offer it. 91% of providers are recommending annual screening, and MiSight has been the most commonly prescribed option. Biggest hurdles are cost (86%), parent understanding (56%), and adherence (49%). Source: The Vision Council
Global trend: Among children ages 6 – 12, soft myopia-control lenses accounted for ~30% of all contact lens fits in 2024, and orthokeratology comprised ~87% of rigid lens fits in this age group. The U.S. is lagging behind this international growth.
Contact lens prescribing
We’re still awaiting 2025 wrap data, but Contact Lens Spectrum’s 2024 market wrap shows dailies still on top. Close to half of U.S. soft lens fits were daily disposables last year. Within that, daily SiHy lenses hit about 41% of the daily category and are expected to cross the 50% mark soon. If your daily/SCL mix isn’t trending upward, you may be behind the curve.
Rigid lenses are still a smaller slice of U.S. prescribing, about 10% of all fits. Within that rigid category, sclerals keep gaining: 27% of fitters say sclerals now make up more than half of their GP fits (up from 22% in 2024 and 13% in 2023). Ortho-k is inching up: 48% of respondents reported their overnight ortho-k fitting increased over the past 12 months.
Source: GP and Custom Soft Annual Report 2025
Scope & procedures
As of right now, 14 states authorize optometric laser procedures, following new laws in Montana (effective July 1, 2025) and West Virginia (effective July 9, 2025).
A 2024 safety review covering 146,403 OD-performed laser procedures across authorized states found just two complications (roughly 0.001%). This data point continues to be widely cited in 2025 legislative and policy debates.
Payers & access
ODs almost never opt out of Medicare. From 2005 – 2023, only 0.38% of optometrists formally opted out, meaning participation is nearly universal. Access issues are more about clinic capacity than program drop-outs. Source: Opting out of Medicare: Characteristics and differences between optometrists and ophthalmologists
By comparison, about 1.2% of non-pediatric physicians opted out in 2024. Eye care is stickier than average.
Workforce snapshot
In 2024, there were about 47,800 optometrist jobs in the U.S., and the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 8% growth through 2034.
Women now make up just over half of practicing ODs. Review of Optometry, citing AOA workforce data, put the figure at 50 – 53% in 2024, confirming that parity has tipped. And the pipeline is decidedly shifting. In the 2024 – 25 academic year, 70.8% of full-time OD students were women.
Where people work (private, corporate, PE)
In just seven years (from 2017 to 2024) private practice’s share of the optometric workforce fell from 51% to 41%. Over that same span, corporate roles rose from 20% to 24.7%, and private equity–backed offices grew from 3% to 10.9%. Source: Culture Shift: The Changing Career Prospects and Priorities of Today’s OD
Pay
The national median income for optometrists was $134,830 in 2024.
A 2025 survey of 2,200 ODs reported an adjusted average of $136,619, with men earning about $177,700 and women about $153,800 — a 13.5% gender pay gap.
The 2025 Jobson Income Study showed similar results, with men averaging $190,167 compared to $163,255 for women.
Tracking where the profession stands today can help you push for better tomorrow in your clinic, your pay structure, and the policies you support. Benchmarks give you the data; the next step is what you do with it.
