YT YouTube2Text

YouTube2Text → Transcripts → Ophthalmologist Salary | How Much Does Ophthalmology Make

Ophthalmologist Salary | How Much Does Ophthalmology Make — Transcript

by Doctor Eyeball MD · 3,723 words · 545 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

Open in transcriber Summarize with AI Download SRT/VTT

Full transcript

0:00in this video we're gonna answer the
0:01question how much can you make in
0:03ophthalmology let's go
0:04[Music]
0:14what's up guys and welcome back to the
0:16channel my name's zach i am a first-year
0:18a sopper's oculoplastic surgery fellow
0:20and if you are new to the channel it's
0:22good to have you if you do dig this
0:23video go ahead leave a like on it and go
0:25ahead and subscribe to the channel we
0:26are on the push to 20 000 subscribers
0:29followers pupils and friends and so go
0:31ahead and join the family we learn a lot
0:33about ophthalmology medicine life as a
0:35doctor all kinds of stuff like that and
0:37i'm bringing guys along on the journey
0:38of me becoming a
0:40oculoplastic surgeon ophthalmologist all
0:42that cool stuff so let's get into the
0:44video i feel like this is a topic that
0:46gets really glazed over really glossed
0:48over in medical school almost nothing in
0:51medical school on this basically from
0:53what i can remember even in residency
0:55there were like two maybe three lectures
0:57it was like
0:58so minimal that we just like get through
1:00residency even and then we're looking
1:02for a job and we have even like no idea
1:05what to expect in terms of like salary
1:07or like how to negotiate a contract or
1:10anything money related it's just like
1:13it's like so over our heads no matter
1:15how much ophthalmology we know or how
1:17good we are as physicians
1:19we just have no idea about any of this
1:20stuff and so we ask people that have
1:22graduated a year to ahead of us like hey
1:24what's even reasonable for my first year
1:25in practice then we look on forums
1:27online and all this stuff so we really
1:30don't have a good grasp of this by the
1:31way guys i think it would be helpful in
1:32this video
1:34if you are a practicing ophthalmologist
1:36and just kind of comment down below
1:38whatever your setup is like if your
1:40cornea your glaucoma your oculoplastics
1:43and kind of your experience what you
1:45know to be like common in terms of
1:48salary and like production bonus and you
1:50know what's reasonable as a take home i
1:52think it'll be kind of a good uh good
1:54place for people to see
1:56and get a lot of different perspectives
1:57so you guys will probably be able to
1:59give more information on this than i can
2:01give in this video so comment down below
2:03um do it anonymously whatever you want
2:05to do um i think it'd be good but i want
2:06to try to shed a little bit of light on
2:08what you can expect in terms of how much
2:11money you'll make if you go into a
2:12career in ophthalmology so i feel like
2:14most of the followers on the channel
2:16probably have a pretty good grasp of
2:18what ophthalmology is but if you don't
2:20if you're new an ophthalmologist is
2:21somebody who did college and they did
2:23four years of medical school and they do
2:24four years of residency and then plus or
2:27minus one or two years of fellowship so
2:29it's a lot of training it's a medical
2:30doctor it's different from optometry
2:33because we do surgery and we're medical
2:34doctors mds so because ophthalmology is
2:37a surgical subspecialty primarily it
2:40tends to be on the higher end of how
2:42much you can make just because that's
2:44the way the american healthcare system
2:46is is it rewards
2:48procedures and i that's probably not a
2:50great thing in terms of the health of a
2:52nation
2:53it should probably focus more on
2:54preventative care and that kind of thing
2:56but the way the system is built and
2:58works is just that it rewards procedures
3:00monetarily and with ophthalmology
3:03there's really not much in the way of
3:04prevention in terms of cataracts other
3:06than staying out of the sun and just
3:08kind of living a healthy life not
3:09getting diabetes that kind of thing but
3:12eventually everybody's gonna need
3:13cataract surgery if you live long enough
3:15so for ophthalmology we do a lot of
3:16procedures and so based off of how much
3:18those procedures are compensated
3:21determine how much you would make in
3:22that specialty so in the past cataract
3:25surgery which is kind of the bread and
3:26butter surgery for the ophthalmologist
3:28used to pay a lot more than it does now
3:30and when i say pay a lot more i mean
3:32what medicare would pay so what the
3:34government health care system medicare
3:37what you get when you turn 65 what it
3:39will reimburse a
3:41cataract surgeon for doing cataract
3:43surgery right now that number is around
3:45five hundred dollars per cataract
3:46surgery and you say oh that sounds
3:47pretty good for five to ten minutes of
3:50work which is about what you can do a
3:51cataract surgery in but when you really
3:53look at it it's not five to ten minutes
3:55it's
3:56ten years of training that gets you to
3:58the point where you can do something in
3:59that amount of time and so year by year
4:01we've seen medicare basically cut little
4:03by little how much they will pay
4:06a cataract surgeon to do a cataract
4:07surgery so how have ophthalmologists
4:09compensated for this well the machines
4:11that we use have gotten really good
4:14cataract surgeons can do 20 30 sometimes
4:1640 cases in a day and so they'll just
4:19bounce back and forth from one room to
4:21the other doing these cataract surgeries
4:22so even if you're doing that if you are
4:24pumping out 20 cases a day which is a
4:26lot of surgery but not unheard of
4:28there's a lot of people doing that and
4:29some people doing twice that many and
4:31you just do them at five hundred dollars
4:32a piece you're looking at about ten
4:34thousand dollars a day just on cataract
4:37surgery now you factor in some things
4:39like premium lenses and when we talk
4:40about premium lenses we mean lenses that
4:42are like torque lenses that will correct
4:44astigmatism extended depth of field
4:46lenses things that will correct your
4:47near medium and far vision rather than
4:49just
4:50only your far vision which is kind of
4:52like the standard monofocal lens when
4:53you start factoring in things like
4:55femtosecond laser-assisted cataract
4:57surgery when you start factoring in
4:58those kind of add-ons to cataract
5:00surgery
5:01then the compensation starts going up
5:03even higher so you're looking at making
5:05tens of thousands of dollars in a
5:06surgery day if you're a high volume
5:08cataract surgeon now you look at
5:10something else like high volume lasik
5:12it's the same kind of thing you're
5:13looking at five to ten minutes of
5:15work to earn
5:17out of pocket up to two four thousand
5:20dollars for a couple eyes this can pay a
5:22lot a lot of money and you can do a lot
5:23of these procedures really quickly
5:26and efficiently if you have a good setup
5:27so as you can see ophthalmology by its
5:30nature is primed to do well in terms of
5:33being compensated for doing a lot of
5:34procedures quickly and we'll get into
5:36the numbers here in a second it's
5:37important to know that ophthalmology is
5:38further broken down by subspecialty so
5:41you have your general ophthalmologist
5:42doing cataract surgery sometimes lasik
5:44surgery you have your oculoplastic
5:47surgeons like me that may be doing
5:49functional plastic surgery even cosmetic
5:51surgery around the eyes and face and so
5:53that comes down to cash pay procedures
5:55that can really drive up the
5:56compensation for oculoplastic surgeon
5:58that they're doing a lot of cosmetic
6:00surgery a lot of out of pocket type
6:02surgery then you have glaucoma surgeons
6:04that are also doing a lot of cataract
6:06surgery than their glaucoma surgeries
6:08often doesn't compensate quite as well
6:10but the job market is a lot better corny
6:12i would put in the same realm as the
6:13glaucoma although they may do a lot of
6:15lasik they may do a lot of premium ios
6:17as well it really depends on how much of
6:19the cash pay procedures are going into
6:21it so the premium lenses the cash based
6:23stuff really factors in to the
6:26compensation of the ophthalmologist
6:27overall but i would say if you want to
6:29just speak in generalities in terms of
6:30ophthalmology subspecialties which ones
6:33are probably making the most you got to
6:34look at the retina surgeons because they
6:37are making a whole lot and a lot of that
6:39comes down to their surgeries pay a lot
6:41and they spend a lot of time in the
6:43clinic where they see a whole bunch of
6:44patients they do a lot of injections
6:46which comp and say well although that's
6:48decreasing and they can order scans of
6:50the retina which are also compensated so
6:52in their clinic visits they're able to
6:53bill a lot for those as well and so
6:56retina specialists by nature just but on
6:58the whole the retina subspecialists tend
7:00to make probably the most and then you
7:02have specialties like pediatrics and
7:04neuro ophthalmology that tend to make a
7:06little less although there are going to
7:07be instances where that is vastly
7:09different and i've seen those instances
7:11firsthand where people in those
7:13sub-specialties make some of the highest
7:15salaries actually in kind of a group
7:18but the lowest for the most part is
7:20going to be neuro-ophthalmology unless
7:22you're just super high volume which i've
7:24also seen that be the case um
7:26neuro-ophthalmologists seeing over 80
7:28patients a day so it really just depends
7:30on how you structure the practice but to
7:32speak in broad generalities and we're
7:33just trying to get an idea here so if we
7:35turn to the medscape compensation report
7:37to kind of see where ophthalmologists
7:39fall and keep in mind this is just one
7:41report if you look at some of the other
7:43ones like the doximity report or just
7:45things you'll find online these numbers
7:47tend to vary a lot and being still in
7:50training i don't have the greatest grasp
7:52of this i'm just trying to kind of give
7:53you guys an idea and let you know what i
7:55know which is of course not complete but
7:57just to go with some of the data that we
7:58have the medscape compensation report
8:01will say that ophthalmology kind of
8:02falls in the upper middle range as far
8:04as all medical specialties go and they
8:07list at about an average salary of 379
8:10000 per year some of the specialties
8:12that they list higher just kind of in
8:13order to give you an idea so they list
8:15plastic surgery uh at the top with 526k
8:19orthopedics at 511 cards with 459k
8:23urology 427k ent 417 radiology 413 gi
8:28406 oncology 403 dermatology 394 and
8:33then ophthalmology at 379
8:36and then if you want to come up from the
8:37bottom of the list it's things like
8:39pediatrics at 221 family medicine 236
8:43public preventive medicine 237 diabetes
8:46endocrine infectious disease internal
8:48medicine kind of working up from the
8:50bottom
8:51but keep in mind these are just kind of
8:54salary ranges and it's important to know
8:56that if you're looking to kind of build
8:58your wealth it's not going to come from
8:59the salary it's going to come from how
9:01much of it you save and any of these
9:03specialties are going to pay you enough
9:05that if you're smart with it and you
9:06save enough money it's not really going
9:08to matter
9:09if you're wise with it you invest it
9:11that kind of thing but this is just
9:12trying to give you a kind of an idea of
9:14the salaries in these specialties and
9:16particularly ophthalmology ophthalmology
9:18actually falls second in terms of
9:20incentive bonus factoring into that
9:22salary behind orthopedic surgery they
9:24list ophthalmology at 87 000 as the
9:27average incentive bonus for
9:29ophthalmologists what that kind of means
9:31is kind of if an ophthalmologist kind of
9:34makes their base salary and then they
9:35gross two to three times that or
9:37whatever the multiplier may be
9:39every every dollar over that they'll
9:41make a certain percentage and so that's
9:43kind of a production bonus for
9:44ophthalmologists uh it encourages them
9:46to kind of be productive and kind of
9:49make money for their practice and then
9:50they get a percentage of it once they
9:52hit a certain target and that's kind of
9:53how a lot of ophthalmology salaries are
9:55structured when you go out into the real
9:57world and try to kind of get a job
9:59that's kind of how it's going to be set
10:00up you'll often have a base salary that
10:02once you make a certain amount over your
10:05base salary if your base salaries say
10:07250 000 coming right out of training is
10:09what your base salary is that's what
10:11you're guaranteed your first year and
10:13then it may have a production bonus type
10:15setup where it says once you've grossed
10:17two times that amount so once you've
10:19grossed 500 000 maybe for the year
10:22everything you make above that you get
10:2330 percent of so everything you gross in
10:26that year greater than 500 000
10:29you get a percentage of so
10:31one you gross from 500 to 600 000 you
10:33get to keep 30 000 of that extra hundred
10:35thousand that's kind of how uh these
10:37things are often structured at least
10:38that's my understanding interestingly in
10:40this medscape compensation report they
10:42list ophthalmologists at the very bottom
10:45in terms of the time spent on paperwork
10:47and administrative work about 10.3 hours
10:50per week this was at the very bottom
10:52only
10:53slightly more than anesthesia so
10:55anesthesia spent less time doing this
10:56administrative type stuff and then
10:58ophthalmologists so what that's good if
11:00you can be in a job where you're not
11:01doing a lot of administrative
11:02bureaucratic stuff that will really
11:04reduce burnout and that kind of thing so
11:06that's important as kind of a breakdown
11:08between self-employed and employed
11:11ophthalmologists so meaning you're
11:13employed by somebody or maybe you're
11:15self-employed as an ophthalmologist uh
11:17the average employed ophthalmologist
11:18made 361 000 per year whereas the
11:21self-employed made 395 000 per year uh
11:24so quite a jump there in in salary not
11:26huge uh and you kind of gotta weigh the
11:29responsibilities that come with uh being
11:31self-employed and the risks that come
11:33along with that and the headaches that
11:34can come along with it but i think
11:36self-employed can be a lot more
11:37successful um to kind of break down just
11:40my anecdotal experience with some of
11:41this stuff
11:43not the numbers necessarily from these
11:44reports but just kind of what i've seen
11:47i want to go into kind of just by
11:48sub-specialty what i think
11:50can be reasonable oh but before i do
11:52that i want to mention from the
11:53doximeter report what they actually list
11:56as the average salary uh the average
11:58annual compensation um for ophthalmology
12:02they actually put at 454 000 so it's a
12:05big difference between the medscape
12:07compensation report
12:09so that's average and so
12:11there's a lot of variation in these
12:12things but just kind of talking to
12:15people that i've worked with or my
12:17friends and that kind of thing people
12:18are going to get jobs that are you know
12:19a year two years ahead of me
12:21kind of the general
12:23thing that i see
12:25most of the time if you're going into
12:26general comprehensive ophthalmology is
12:29somewhere in the low twos to like upper
12:32two's range so like the 225 225 000 to
12:35275 000 range is kind of like the
12:38average starting base salary for
12:41general comprehensive ophthalmology you
12:43tack on a fellowship like glaucoma you
12:45might go a little bit higher although i
12:47still feel like it's often in the mid to
12:49upper two range um but it's also going
12:52to depend on where you're practicing the
12:53more rural of a place it is the higher
12:55it's going to be so it may be up in the
12:57threes
12:58as a starting salary
12:59but i think the important thing to
13:00realize is the starting salary is really
13:03not the important thing here it's what
13:05is the potential sealing of the salary
13:08or income and how quickly can you get
13:10there those are really the two most
13:11important things and i think a lot of us
13:13get caught up too much
13:15in that kind of base salary right out of
13:18the gate but it's more important to look
13:20at the production bonus uh and and that
13:22multiplier i talked about the lower it
13:24can be uh you can really make a whole
13:26lot more than these base salaries so you
13:28may have the base salary of 250 and you
13:30think oh my god i've been training for
13:32this long that's really not that great
13:34but
13:35with the production bonus if you get
13:37busy a year two three years into
13:38practice you know you can be doubling or
13:41even even more than doubling uh that
13:44amount so you can be making you know
13:46five hundred thousand seven or fifty
13:47thousand uh if you're really productive
13:49high volume and that kind of thing so
13:51the production bonus is probably more
13:52important than the base salary and how
13:54easy it is to get to that production
13:56bonus so more anecdotal
13:58things that i just know from being in
14:00this for a while is uh so
14:02inoculoplastics are to go into the
14:04subspecialties specifically um
14:07i know that you can go out and you can
14:09do you can get a really low base salary
14:11like like staggeringly like like mind
14:14bogglingly low
14:16of what you would think you should get
14:18so
14:18it could be down in the ones it could be
14:20even lower and then they kind of try to
14:22sell you on the production bonus and
14:24that kind of thing i've also seen on the
14:26other side with oculoplastic surgeons
14:28that are really
14:29busy in terms of doing a lot of cosmetic
14:31procedures and have really busy
14:33practices where you're making over a
14:35million dollars so it varies really
14:37widely and again it just comes down to
14:41often the cash pay out out-of-pocket
14:43stuff uh will really kind of drive up
14:45and really determine
14:47uh how much how much you're going to
14:48make in the sub-specialty retina like i
14:51said this is going to be more in in the
14:53higher range
14:54so so think 300 400 plus thousand uh
14:58early on and then once you get into it
15:01you're you're looking at over half a
15:03million and i know of retina guys that
15:05make you know multiple million dollars a
15:07year
15:08that are in busy retina practice like i
15:10said with corny and glaucoma you can
15:12really do just as well depending on how
15:13many of the premium lenses how much
15:15cataract surgery you're doing and that
15:16kind of thing will determine how much
15:18you're gonna make in regards to that i
15:19know a lot of people really don't want
15:20to go into pediatric ophthalmology and i
15:22feel like that's often
15:24uh
15:24driven by the compensation that we see
15:27that goes along with pediatric
15:28ophthalmology um but i've seen where
15:30pediatric ophthalmologists can do really
15:31really well you know 800 900 over a
15:34million range uh in pediatric
15:36ophthalmologists i've seen that
15:37personally as well uh so i've seen where
15:39they can do quite well i'll say it's
15:40kind of the take-home point is i
15:41wouldn't let this affect your
15:43decision-making too much you can kind of
15:45see these these salary numbers and you
15:47can see maybe one sub-specialty that
15:48does you know a hundred thousand more
15:50than another on average and that kind of
15:52thing but the variation is so wide and
15:55it really just comes down to practice
15:57setup and i don't think that even that
15:59difference should be enough to sway your
16:01decision you know you're going to do
16:03fine in ophthalmology in any regard so i
16:06just wouldn't let it affect your your
16:08decision making and just pick the
16:10specialty that you think you're going to
16:11have the most fun doing and you'll find
16:13a way to do well you will do well
16:16because
16:17this is just how it works in
16:18ophthalmology just get compensated well
16:20enough to be happy and again like i said
16:22it's not the income that's going to
16:24determine how well you do it's how much
16:25of it you save do you invest it right
16:28and are you smart with it and do you
16:29kind of live below your means in terms
16:31of uh what you make and uh and that's
16:34kind of the take-home message but i know
16:36you guys are curious i know a lot of you
16:38have no idea even like the ranges on on
16:41these salaries so i just want to give
16:42you a kind of a look at sort of a broad
16:45overarching look at how ophthalmologists
16:47tend to do so to recap coming out of
16:50residency don't be surprised if you get
16:52a base salary somewhere in the low twos
16:55uh if you're in a more busy city to uh
16:58high two's range um you'll often have
17:00that production bonus that may kick in
17:02uh within you know a year or two once
17:04you're busy enough some of the other
17:06species like retina are probably going
17:07to make a little bit more oculoplastics
17:09varies if you're in academics it's going
17:11to be less if you're in private practice
17:13and you're doing a lot of cosmetic stuff
17:14it can be quite high so it really just
17:16depends on the setup but that's kind of
17:17the general overarching
17:19sort of
17:21range salary range that kind of thing
17:23for ophthalmology hope you guys found
17:24that interesting um if you enjoy these
17:26kind of money related
17:28topics financial related topics around
17:30medicine ophthalmology i'm no guru on
17:32this but i'm just trying to kind of give
17:34you guys some information because
17:36it's so lacking out there
17:38and if you're a seasoned ophthalmologist
17:40and you have more information you're in
17:41practice and you can comment some of
17:43your numbers down in the chat uh or
17:46comments go ahead and do that to help
17:47everybody out uh do it anonymously
17:49whatever hope you guys like the video
17:50i'm zach with dr eyeball d i'll see you
17:52in the next one

About this transcript

This page contains the full transcript of Ophthalmologist Salary | How Much Does Ophthalmology Make by Doctor Eyeball MD, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 3,723 words across 545 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.

What you can do with it

Use the transcript to take notes, quote the speaker, build a study guide, generate a summary with ChatGPT or Claude via the YouTube Summary tool, or export it as a timed subtitle file with YouTube to SRT. You can also re-open it in the transcriber to translate the transcript into 100+ languages.

Free YouTube transcript tool

YouTube2Text is a free YouTube transcript generator — no signup, no daily limit. Paste any YouTube link and get the full transcript instantly, with timestamps, click-to-jump, translation to 100+ languages, AI prompts for ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, and exports to TXT, SRT, VTT, or Markdown.