Program Codes: 
10295
Employment Percentage: 
10.634005763689
SOC ID: 
29-2081
SOC Title: 
Opticians, Dispensing
ONET ID: 
29-2081.00
ONET Concat ID: 
29208100
Median Salary: 
47512.56
Interest Area Term: 
Ed Level High School: 
26.93
Ed Level Certificate: 
26.92
Ed Level Some College: 
3.85
Ed Level Associates: 
42.310001
Ed Level Bachelors: 
0
Ed Level Masters: 
0
Ed Level Doctor: 
0
Typical Ed Level: 
an Associate degree
Description: 

Design, measure, fit, and adapt lenses and frames for client according to written optical prescription or specification. Assist client with inserting, removing, and caring for contact lenses. Assist client with selecting frames. Measure customer for size of eyeglasses and coordinate frames with facial and eye measurements and optical prescription. Prepare work order for optical laboratory containing instructions for grinding and mounting lenses in frames. Verify exactness of finished lens spectacles. Adjust frame and lens position to fit client. May shape or reshape frames. Includes contact lens opticians.

Core Tasks: 

<ul><li>Evaluate prescriptions in conjunction with clients' vocational and avocational visual requirements.</li><li>Verify that finished lenses are ground to specifications.</li><li>Recommend specific lenses, lens coatings, and frames to suit client needs.</li><li>Measure clients' bridge and eye size, temple length, vertex distance, pupillary distance, and optical centers of eyes, using measuring devices.</li><li>Sell goods such as contact lenses, spectacles, sunglasses, and other goods related to eyes in general.</li><li>Assist clients in selecting frames according to style and color, and ensure that frames are coordinated with facial and eye measurements and optical prescriptions.</li><li>Heat, shape, or bend plastic or metal frames to adjust eyeglasses to fit clients, using pliers and hands.</li><li>Show customers how to insert, remove, and care for their contact lenses.</li><li>Maintain records of customer prescriptions, work orders, and payments.</li><li>Determine clients' current lens prescriptions, when necessary, using lensometers or lens analyzers and clients' eyeglasses.</li><li>Fabricate lenses to meet prescription specifications.</li><li>Instruct clients in how to wear and care for eyeglasses.</li><li>Prepare work orders and instructions for grinding lenses and fabricating eyeglasses.</li><li>Assemble eyeglasses by cutting and edging lenses, and fitting the lenses into frames.</li><li>Obtain a customer's previous record, or verify a prescription with the examining optometrist or ophthalmologist.</li><li>Order and purchase frames and lenses.</li><li>Repair damaged frames.</li><li>Perform administrative duties such as tracking inventory and sales, submitting patient insurance information, and performing simple bookkeeping.</li><li>Supervise the training of student opticians.</li><li>Arrange and maintain displays of optical merchandise.</li></ul>

Start Annual Earnings: 
28203.62
Top Annual Earnings: 
77735.81
Title Slug: 
optician-dispensing