Jobs / Healthcare / 29-2099.05
Ophthalmic Medical Technologists
Assist ophthalmologists by performing ophthalmic clinical functions and ophthalmic photography. Provide instruction and supervision to other ophthalmic personnel. Assist with minor surgical procedures, applying aseptic techniques and preparing instruments. May perform eye exams, administer eye medications, and instruct patients in care and use of corrective lenses.
- US jobs
- 182,610 (SOC 29-2099 group, "Health Technologists and Technicians, All Other")
- Median wage
- $50,290 a year
- Job family
- Healthcare
Can agents do the work of ophthalmic medical technologists?
We read the evidence at the level of the job family, Healthcare:
- Task levelPartialOne benchmark, from early 2025. On Stanford's MedAgentBench, where agents do clinical tasks in a simulated electronic health record, the best recorded model completes 69.7% of tasks (Claude 3.5 Sonnet v2). It has no maintained leaderboard, so newer models are not measured. No benchmark in our collection tests work with patients.
- Project levelPartialOnly adjacent evidence. GDPval includes nurses among its 44 occupations. OpenAI reports that GPT-5.5's deliverables won or tied against professionals' work in 84.9% of comparisons across all occupations. No benchmark in our collection tests clinical work over days, such as managing a patient's care.
Benchmarks for the job family
These cover work in healthcare, not always this occupation's tasks.
- 1846 EloClaude Opus 5.5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort, Default Fallback) · 23 Sep 2026Unrated
Typical tasks
From O*NET 31.0. Core tasks first. Few of these tasks have a benchmark today.
- Conduct tonometry or tonography tests to measure intraocular pressure.
- Take and document patients' medical histories.
- Take anatomical or functional ocular measurements, such as axial length measurements, of the eye or surrounding tissue.
- Measure visual acuity, including near, distance, pinhole, or dynamic visual acuity, using appropriate tests.
- Administer topical ophthalmic or oral medications.
- Measure and record lens power, using lensometers.
- Calculate corrections for refractive errors.
- Collect ophthalmic measurements or other diagnostic information, using ultrasound equipment, such as A-scan ultrasound biometry or B-scan ultrasonography equipment.
- Perform ophthalmic triage, in the office or by phone, to assess severity of patients' conditions.
- Clean or sterilize ophthalmic or surgical instruments.
- Educate patients on ophthalmic medical procedures, conditions of the eye, and appropriate use of medications.
- Conduct ocular motility tests to measure function of eye muscles.
Other job titles for this occupation (21)
Certified Diagnostic Ophthalmic Sonographer (CDOS) · Certified Ophthalmic Medical Technologist (COMT) · Ophthalmic Echographer · Ophthalmic Medical Technologist (Ophthalmic Medical Tech) · Ophthalmic Photographer · Ophthalmic Sonographer · Ophthalmic Technologist (Ophthalmic Tech) · Ophthalmic Ultrasonographer · Registered Ophthalmic Ultrasound Biometrist (ROUB) · Surgical Coordinator · Angiographer · Angiography Technologist · Certified Ophthalmic Technologist · Certified Retinal Angiographer · Medical Technologist · Ocular Care Technologist · Ophthalmic Diagnostic Imager · Ophthalmic Surgical Coordinator · Optometric Prescreener · Optometric Technologist · Retinal Angiographer