Opticians, Dispensing 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.
Opticians, Dispensing is Also Know as
In different settings, Opticians, Dispensing is titled as
- Certified Optician
- Contact Lens Technician
- Dispensing Optician
- Licensed Dispensing Optician (LDO)
- Licensed Optician
- Ophthalmic Dispenser
- Optical Technician
- Optician
- Optometric Technician
- Registered Optician
Education and Training of Opticians, Dispensing
Opticians, Dispensing is categorized in Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed
Experience Required for Opticians, Dispensing
Previous work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is required for these occupations. For example, an electrician must have completed three or four years of apprenticeship or several years of vocational training, and often must have passed a licensing exam, in order to perform the job.
Education Required for Opticians, Dispensing
Most occupations in this zone require training in vocational schools, related on-the-job experience, or an associate's degree.
Degrees Related to Opticians, Dispensing
- Bachelor in Opticianry/Ophthalmic Dispensing Optician
- Associate Degree Courses in Opticianry/Ophthalmic Dispensing Optician
- Masters Degree Courses in Opticianry/Ophthalmic Dispensing Optician
Training Required for Opticians, Dispensing
Employees in these occupations usually need one or two years of training involving both on-the-job experience and informal training with experienced workers. A recognized apprenticeship program may be associated with these occupations.
Related Ocuupations
Some Ocuupations related to Opticians, Dispensing in different industries are
- Ophthalmic Laboratory Technicians
- Ophthalmic Medical Technicians
- Optometrists
- Ophthalmic Medical Technologists
- Pharmacy Aides
- Pharmacy Technicians
- Endoscopy Technicians
- Medical Equipment Preparers
- Medical Assistants
- Hearing Aid Specialists
- Pharmacists
- Dental Assistants
- Orthotists and Prosthetists
- Audiologists
- Ophthalmologists, Except Pediatric
- Surgical Technologists
- Radiologic Technologists and Technicians
- Neurodiagnostic Technologists
- Phlebotomists
- Pediatric Surgeons
What Do Opticians, Dispensing do?
- Measure clients' bridge and eye size, temple length, vertex distance, pupillary distance, and optical centers of eyes, using measuring devices.
- Verify that finished lenses are ground to specifications.
- Prepare work orders and instructions for grinding lenses and fabricating eyeglasses.
- Assist clients in selecting frames according to style and color, and ensure that frames are coordinated with facial and eye measurements and optical prescriptions.
- Maintain records of customer prescriptions, work orders, and payments.
- Perform administrative duties, such as tracking inventory and sales, submitting patient insurance information, and performing simple bookkeeping.
- Recommend specific lenses, lens coatings, and frames to suit client needs.
- Sell goods such as contact lenses, spectacles, sunglasses, and goods related to eyes, in general.
- Heat, shape, or bend plastic or metal frames to adjust eyeglasses to fit clients, using pliers and hands.
- Evaluate prescriptions in conjunction with clients' vocational and avocational visual requirements.
- Instruct clients in how to wear and care for eyeglasses.
- Determine clients' current lens prescriptions, when necessary, using lensometers or lens analyzers and clients' eyeglasses.
- Show customers how to insert, remove, and care for their contact lenses.
- Repair damaged frames.
- Obtain a customer's previous record, or verify a prescription with the examining optometrist or ophthalmologist.
- Arrange and maintain displays of optical merchandise.
- Fabricate lenses to meet prescription specifications.
- Grind lens edges, or apply coatings to lenses.
- Assemble eyeglasses by cutting and edging lenses, and fitting the lenses into frames.
- Supervise the training of student opticians.
- Order and purchase frames and lenses.
Qualities of Good Opticians, Dispensing
- Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
- Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
- Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
- Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
- Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
- Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
- Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
- Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
- Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
- Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
- Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
- Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
- Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
- Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
- Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
- Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
- Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
- Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
- Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
- Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
- Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
- Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
- Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
- Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
- Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
- Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
- Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
- Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
- Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
- Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
- Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
- Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
- Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
- Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
- Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
- Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
- Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
- Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
- Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
- Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
- Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
- Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
- Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
- Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
- Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
- Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
- Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
- Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
- Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
- Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
Tools Used by Opticians, Dispensing
- Angling pliers
- Autorefractors
- Bracing pliers
- Bushing pullers
- Cash registers
- Chain nose pliers
- Cold-bend pliers
- Contact lens thickness gauges
- Contact lens tweezers
- Credit card processing machines
- Desktop computers
- Dial calipers
- Digital calipers
- Digital pupilometers
- End piece pliers
- Flat nose pliers
- Focimeters
- Frame warmers
- Half-round files
- Hex wrenches
- Hollow snipe pliers
- Laptop computers
- Lens aligning pliers
- Lens analyzers
- Lens clocks
- Lens files
- Millimeter rules
- Nose pad adjusting pliers
- Optical cutting pliers
- Optical screwdrivers
- Optometric lensometers
- Personal computers
- Phillips head screwdrivers
- Pickup screwdrivers
- Pupillometers
- Screw-holding tweezers
- Snellen eye charts
- Snipe nose pliers
- Straight screwdrivers
Technology Skills required for Opticians, Dispensing
- Compulink Eyecare Advantage
- Cygnet Infotech Optifocus
- Database software
- Diversified Ophthalmics Practice Maximus
- EMRlogic Systems ENTERPRISE Visions
- EZ-Zone Optizone Enterprise
- First Insight MaximEyes
- HealthLine Systems Eyecom
- Insight Software My Vision Express
- Intuit QuickBooks
- Inventory management systems
- Microsoft Excel
- Microsoft Office software
- Microsoft Word
- OfficeMate Software Solutions OfficeMate
- Point of sale POS software
- Specialist Data Solutions OctoPlus
- Word processing software