Is ‘pay as you go’ optometry done for after lockdown?

The recent crisis has brought into sharp focus (excuse the pun) the inadequacy of the current optical business model – No Patients = No Revenue. That is, of course, true for most retailers, and it’s certainly true for the optical businesses that are heavily focused on spectacles to generate their revenue.

The question we all continually grapple with is whether optics is a retail or a service industry? Most independent optometrists like to believe they’re primarily a service industry, but the patient predominantly sees ‘opticians’ as suppliers of glasses and contact lenses. They see what they get for their hard-earned cash and for the vast majority, it isn’t healthcare.