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Mixed MD-OD delivery models proliferate
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Would you like a pay raise? The best-compensated eye surgeons in America work closely with optometry. They do so either through co-management relationships or through traditional employment arrangements. In both situations, control over access to surgical cases is improved, and the surgeon's workday is narrowed to high-value/high-satisfaction surgical care.
Because the span of ophthalmology is expanding beyond its former geriatric bias to full-service "lust-to-dust" patient care, at the same time that optometric practice scope is widening, there is a rising trend toward combined OD-MD practices. Relatively conservative one-to-one or lower OD-to-MD ratios will yield to two-, three- and four-to-one ratios in the future. Most such practices will be owned by MDs — and a small but growing number by ODs. By 2020, group ophthalmology practices without optometric staffing will be rare. Count on it.
Get more expert perspective from John Pinto live at Hawaiian Eye 2010, to be held January 17-22, 2010 at the Grand Hyatt Kauai. Learn more at OSNHawaiianEye.com.