Ophthalmic Technician Salary

Providing medical assistance to senior surgeons and doctors is a task that demands a skilled workforce. Since these doctors focus on the core issues concerning a patient's health, they need help and support in providing other basic medical treatments. In the health care fraternity, almost all hospital jobs require skilled assistants.

Owing to the increasing challenges in managing a patient's health, expertise in every aspect of medical jobs has become a benchmark for excellence. When it comes to diagnosing and treating complications related to eye problems, ophthalmologists take the help of ophthalmic technicians.

Consequently, the need for an educated and trained workforce to provide the much required medical assistance to doctors has increased leading to various career opportunities in this field. Medical students pursuing ophthalmology courses, besides being curious about the growth in this field, are concerned about the financial prospects it has to offer.

The salary of an ophthalmic technician, firstly, depends on the duties and responsibilities. Being involved at the helm of activities related to patient care, their work responsibilities are in general related to much deeper technical aspects of eye treatment.

Depending on the set of tasks assigned to them, that may range from something as simple as prescribing contact lenses to more challenging tasks like assisting ophthalmologists in providing laser eye surgery, their pay scale varies.

The second dominant factor that influences the pay is the educational qualification. These professionals are primarily employed by ophthalmologists and work under their supervision and direction. After one has graduated with the accredited programs in the corresponding field of study, seeking a license is important.

Moreover, the salary varies depending on the certifications earned through qualifying various national level exams conducted by reputed bodies like the American Orthoptic Council (AOC) and Joint Commission on Allied Health Personnel in Ophthalmology (JCAHPO), to name a few.

Further, work experience plays a pivotal role in the earning potential as well. The salary for a professional with a year's work experience, ranges between USD 24,000 and USD 41,990 annually. If you analyze the salary range across industries, this is generally the trend in the initial years for most of the professions.

With increase in work experience, as expected the salaries would rise. Someone having work experience of about 5 - 9 years can make between USD 31,300 to USD 52,700 annually. For more than 10 years of work experience, the average salary may go as high as about USD 61,550 per year.

Lastly, the pay also depends on work location. Those staying in cities where the cost of living is higher are paid higher than those living in places where the cost of living is not very high. In terms of career development, one can go on to administrative and managerial level positions in clinics and hospitals, but it requires considerable work experience.