How to fill your staffing needs

Excerpted from page 26 of the Spring 2025 edition of AOA Focus. 

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, doctors of optometry have struggled to find qualified job candidates amid growing competition. Meanwhile, increasing demands—driven by the pandemic and technological advancements—have disrupted all of health care, including optometry, says Derri Sandberg, O.D., owner of Lifetime Vision Care in Bend, Oregon. 

Dr. Sandberg’s practice currently has two opticians on staff, but she’d like three to meet the demand for properly fitted glasses and contact lenses. Instead, she has searched for months now and grown frustrated. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 7,400 openings for opticians are projected annually, with 3% projected job growth for that position from 2023–2033.  

A vacancy puts pressure on other staff, as they cover for the unfilled position.  

“The workforce is not nearly developing enough opticians,” Dr. Sandberg says, which complicates the delivery of “amazing care. 

‘An indispensable resource’ 

AOAExcel® Chair Samuel Pierce, O.D., agrees. AOAExcel operates a career center connecting practice owners and hiring managers with doctors of optometry. 

Understaffing can have consequences for practices. Appointments are delayed and doctors might have to put off plans for a well-earned retirement.  

“That unfilled position might delay the updating of patients’ personal information into the record or cause a delay in training paraoptometrics on certain diagnostic equipment,” says Dr. Pierce. 

So, what is Dr. Sandberg looking for in a new hire to join the two other opticians on staff? 

Certainly, she is looking for candidates with skill sets to match the position. They must be tech-savvy and trainable and share her practice standards.  

“Patients come first,” she says emphatically. “In the culture of our office, patient needs come first.”  

Many practices can tell you about the long-term, loyal staff member. But practice owners lament the challenges in hiring, training and retaining clinical and paraoptometric staff.  

AOAExcel provides numerous resources to help practice owners find ideal candidates, including a separate AOAExcel Career Center for assisting them or employers and job seekers. Throughout its existence, the center has filled thousands of open positions for doctors of optometry.  

“The AOAExcel Career Center is an indispensable resource for doctors of optometry, whether they are looking for a new job or hiring an O.D. for their practice,” Dr. Pierce says. “Job seekers have access to a wide range of opportunities and can set job alerts to help streamline their search.  

“Employers benefit from one-on-one support from AOAExcel Career Center specialists to craft standout listings, access to a robust résumé database and outreach options to help them connect with top-tier candidates, even those who are not actively searching for a position.” 

The importance of training 

A number of crosscurrents are impacting the practice of optometry, and those are having an effect on how paraoptometrics do their jobs.  

Specifically, as scope of practice expands across the U.S.—12 states now allow doctors of optometry to offer laser procedures to patients—practices will be reliant on well-trained paraoptometric staff to support doctors of optometry.  

That’s where the AOA’s resources come in, says Erlinda Rodriguez, CPO, chair of the AOA Paraoptometric Resource Committee. Rodriguez also is a practice manager in Chicago.  

“In today’s optometric practice, success comes from having an efficient and well-trained team of paraoptometrics who assist in the care of each patient,” Rodriguez says.  

“To meet the health care demands as optometry increases scope, delegation of duties to knowledgeable optometric staff is essential so that doctors of optometry can effectively provide patients with comprehensive, expanded, well-rounded care to meet the eye care needs of patients,” she says.  

The AOA offers a trove of such resources.  

“Up-to-date paraoptometric educational resources and training can be found in EyeLearn, as well as monthly webinars and continuing education at Optometry’s Meeting®,” Rodriguez says. “Take advantage of all of it!”  

About 25 practice management courses—for doctors, paraoptometrics and both together—are being offered at Optometry’s Meeting 2025 in Minneapolis. Randall Kempfer, O.D., serves as co-chair of the AOA Education Center Committee. The committee puts out a call for courses for Optometry’s Meeting each summer and reviews the submissions. Courses are chosen based on whether they best enhance the knowledge base of the AOA’s members.  

“Growth and retention of well-trained staff are critical to any practice wanting to provide exceptional patient care,” Dr. Kempfer says. “We are offering some dynamic courses that will empower a paraoptometric to grow in their career and benefit the practice and patients.” 

Avoiding turnover 

How do you keep a paraoptometric staff member once you hire them? Rodriguez acknowledges the struggle for some practices.  

“High turnover can disrupt patient care and increase training costs,” Rodriguez says, citing a list of ways to retain staff:  

• Provide staff with the opportunity to advance their skills and professional development.  
• Elevate them to a significant role in the practice.  
• Instill a higher level of commitment, enthusiasm and involvement in the profession. 
• “Rewarding staff for their accomplishments, motivating them to be certified  

and continuing to support their professional development will not only solidify their commitment to the practice, but will also positively result in patient satisfaction, excellent care and improve patient outcomes,” Rodriguez says. 

Turn employee benefits into a recruiting tool  

You’re competing against the big players—huge national retailers and larger optometry practices. How do you beat them? 

In 2022, AOAExcel offered a workshop, titled “How to Utilize Retirement Plans as an Optometric Practice Owner.” Among the workshop topics: enticing prospective employees with top-tier retirement plans. Salary and location may be uppermost in the minds of recent graduates from optometry school, but employee benefits might be the tipping point when jobs are accepted. A retirement savings plan can set your practice apart and make working for your practice more attractive to quality applicants, as well as help retain your valuable employees. 

Benefits can set a job search apart.  

Separate yourself from the pack  

Jill Maher is the principal consultant and owner of Maher Medical Practice Consulting in Chicago. Maher consults with medical practices, primarily optometric and ophthalmology offices across the country.  

Among her areas of expertise are strategic planning, practice efficiency, business development, marketing, high-performance teams, and physician and administrative recruitment. She has worked with hundreds of practices over the past 20 years, mostly recruiting.  

Maher connects with practices and job candidates through networking, optometry school career websites, the AOAExcel Career Center and professional affiliates. Her company has posted opportunities on the AOAExcel Career Center.  

Optometry’s employment environment hasn’t always been this competitive. What’s changed, based on Maher’s experience, is, first, the aging of the baby boomer generation, which has created a demand for services, and second, the boom in very large, corporate-owned retailers competing for optometry school graduates and young optometrists.  

“A lot of the retailers have expanded at a very rapid rate over the past 10 years,” she says. “Now, all of a sudden, there is tons of opportunity. It’s a great time to be an optometrist because you can pick and choose what type of business model you want to go into.”  

How can a practice stand out?  

It’s hard to compete with a sunny location and regional differences in salary. Beyond salary and location, though, practices can offer benefits that distinguish them, such as friendly, experienced co-workers.  

“Practices are definitely doing a lot more today than they were in terms of offering more benefits,” Maher says.  

Some benefits to consider highlighting if you’re not already offering them—and they can help with retention, too:  

• Paid time off/vacation
• Medical, dental and vision insurance
• Life, disability and professional liability insurance
• Financial benefits: e.g., retirement plans, health and flexible spending accounts
• Wellness programs/incentives and employee assistance programs
• Covering the cost of professional dues
• Educational stipends
• Moving costs
• Opportunity to “buy into” a practice
• Exclusive discounts
• Family-friendly hours

“You’re going to find much better benefits, obviously, in the larger corporate establishments, but even private practices are offering more,” Maher says. 

“Some practices and companies are starting to offer tuition reimbursement, as well as to help students pay their debt down,” she adds.  

Seeking job seekers  

Earlier this year, Chris Wroten, O.D., was looking to fill an opening on his clinical staff.  

“We’ve been very blessed to practice alongside some great doctors and staff over the years,” says Dr. Wroten, who advertised the practice’s position on the AOAExcel Career Center job search. “But replacing a doctor who moves out of state, or leaves for another position for any other reason, is always the most difficult because you’re never fully prepared for it.”  

Compounding that challenge for Dr. Wroten is this wrinkle: He has three offices in Louisiana. One is rural, one is in a suburb of a metropolitan area and one is in a small- to medium-sized town.  

“The rural clinic is the most challenging to find someone for,” Dr. Wroten says. “But, once you do, they usually fall in love with the variety and scope of care we provide, the tangible difference we see in the lives of patients, and how truly appreciative patients and their families are of that care. 

“The metropolitan area is easier to find someone for but may also be harder to keep long term, due to a multitude of options and other factors,” he adds.  

To prepare for his search, he researched benefits by reading several articles and benchmarked what traditionally had been offered to doctors. And he thought back to when he was a young doctor and what mattered most to him. 

“During our search, candidates were interested in a strong base salary with the potential to achieve a production bonus, a good work-life balance, the opportunity to practice full-scope optometry, and benefits that included health insurance, a 401(k) with company match, paid time off, the support to serve in organized optometry and a few other benefits,” such as paid association dues and a cell phone allowance, Dr. Wroten says. 

His practice’s career center post generated numerous responses, including three  “very strong” candidates. They agreed to terms with their first choice.  

“Benefits definitely matter and helped us be even more competitive, at least in the pool of candidates we interviewed.” 

Putting your best foot forward  

Practices want to showcase what they can offer. On the flip side, what are practices looking for in a job seeker? Clinical skills, a team player, a good communicator and a focused learner attract employers, Maher says, but adds that some candidates drop the ball after their interviews and fail to send an email thanking a doctor for the opportunity. Sometimes it’s something that simple.  

Going above and beyond matters, too.  

“I think oftentimes practices are looking for somebody—and this might sound very old school—but somebody who is hardworking,” says Maher, noting that the desire for work-life balance ranks high with job seekers also. “It’s important to always think about what you can do for that practice or that corporation, such as being a hard worker and seeing that extra patient.”