u/Glad-Attention744

Hey guys! So I have been working as an ophthalmic tech for maybe 9 weeks now? I started the 2nd of March. I really have been loving it, however there’s a lot of things that kind of raise yellow flags. I love the patients, the doctors, the staff. But as benefits go, there is really none. I do have insurance but it’s only the catastrophic plan. So nothing is covered until you hit your 6k deductible. Not ideal, but it’s whatever. But I guess it used to be better and they switched and now it’s even worse and then a lot of people left because of it. We also don’t get PTO, I mean I guess you get 1 hour for every 30 hours worked so wooo.. but the biggest thing for me is the amount of stuff I need to do before a patient even sees a doctor. A couple days a week we have 5 patients every 15 mins coming in. It’s complete chaos. We only have 4 techs. There has been not an empty seat in the lobby and people are leaving because it’s taking so long. I feel horrible but I’m barely trained and doing things on my own. We have to do so much with the complete exams with the ophthalmologist patients. It will take 20-30 mins with them before doctor.
Then I was talking to my dad and he raised a good question and I am curious. Why do techs do the refraction? My dad was like “I wouldn’t want someone who’s not a doctor making my glasses prescription. I want a doctor.” And I’m so new with refraction and I would hate to give someone a bad prescription. I mean it’s pretty straight forward now but I think you know what I mean. Some days it just feels like we are just cheap techs to do all the work so the doctor doesn’t have to do as much and can see more people. I felt more appreciated at my old job and that wasn’t much :/

Anyway, thanks for reading if you made it this far. I needed to rant. I don’t want to complain at the work place and cause drama. I have barely been there 2 months and I have known 5 people to leave/get fired so I have no idea what the heck is happening