2025 turned out to be a pivotal year for the eye care industry. From incredible clinical advancements to shifts in patient behavior, regulations, and financial pressures, ophthalmology and optometry practices had a lot to navigate this year. In this Wrapped-style recap, we’re breaking down the biggest challenges and trends in clinical care, operations, patient behavior, compliance, and technology—plus the best practices forward-thinking clinics are carrying into 2026 for a strong year.
Driven by new research and technology, 2025 brought exciting clinical progress for eye care. Here are just a few of the industry-changing advancements:
Artificial Intelligence (AI) continued to transform the industry. By analyzing imaging, AI is enabling providers to diagnose conditions like glaucoma, macular degeneration, and diabetic retinopathy faster and with higher accuracy, often catching small changes the human eye can miss. Early detection leads to better outcomes, making AI one of the most influential tools of the year.
Gene therapy is now a reality in eye care. The first gene therapy for macular telangiectasia type 2 gained FDA approval in 2025, offering hope to patients suffering from this historically untreatable condition. By correcting defective genes in the eye, this therapy may help providers treat even more patients with genetic diseases in the future.
This year, the FDA approved a new eye drop for dry eye disease, TRYPTYR (acoltremon). This drop stimulates corneal nerves, rapidly increasing natural tear production. With more than 16 million Americans suffering from dry eye disease, the eye drop fills a critical gap.
Myopia continues to rise globally, especially among children, making early intervention crucial. This year, researchers continued to make meaningful progress in understanding and slowing myopia progression. Clinical trials expanded this year to evaluate low-dose atropine drops, innovative spectacle and contact lens designs, and combination therapies. Protecting long-term vision early on is becoming more achievable every year.
Imaging tools made a notable leap forward in 2025, enabling sharper, deeper retinal visualization. On the surgical side, minimally invasive techniques and robotic-assisted surgery continue to advance, enabling better precision and quicker recovery times. Together, these innovations are improving outcomes for delicate eye procedures.
Eye care practices felt the continued impact of rising supply costs, staffing challenges, and vendor fees—with 69% of eye care providers saying inflation influenced their business this year. With overhead up, practices had to rethink exam fees, optical pricing, and operational efficiency, all without alienating cost-conscious patients.
To stay resilient in 2025, many practices leaned into:
Read more on this in our blog: Inflation in Eye Care: 5 Trends Helping Practices Win.
The wave of practice consolidation continued this year, but at a moderate pace. Since 2019, over 313 eye care practice deals worth $17 billion have been completed. Tariffs and market uncertainty slowed PE activity in early 2025, but confidence rebounded later in the year. Eye care remains a resilient and profitable sector, offering practices more options for selling, partnering, or scaling.
As demand rises, practices are looking for ways to scale without overworking their teams. In 2025, many turned to eye-care-specific platforms that unify clinical, optical, and billing workflows. Consolidating fragmented systems reduces duplicate data entry, improves accuracy, and gives practices better performance visibility.
Automation also played a bigger role than ever. Tasks such as claims status checks, appointment reminders, payment collection, inventory tracking, and documentation routing became more streamlined with automated workflows, enabling practices to work smarter.
Patients continued to prioritize vision care in 2025. According to a Vision Council report, eye exam activity remained steady across virtually all demographics. As a result, practices generally kept their calendars full and saw patients return on schedule.
However, 2025 brought a noteworthy trend on the optical front: the volume of frames sold fell in 2025 compared to 2024, yet patients prioritized higher quality. This shows that patients may be opting for “fewer but nicer” spending patterns, stretching their replacement cycles, yet willing to invest in better products when they do buy. In-person retail still dominates, with 86% of eyewear purchases made in-store, but online retail remains attractive for younger generations.
The Vision Council’s Consumer inSights Q3 2025 report showed that most patients used their vision benefits for exams, glasses, and contacts. Still, some cost-conscious patients delayed upgrading eyewear if their insurance allowance didn’t fully cover costs. Educating patients on the value of updated prescriptions remains a key priority.
Patients continued to expect a more convenient, consumer-like healthcare experience—and eye care practices felt the pressure to adapt. In fact, Experian’s 2025 State of Patient Access Report revealed 80% of patients want the ability to book appointments anytime, anywhere. Practices responded to shifting expectations by expanding the use of self-scheduling, digital intake forms, and two-way texting to streamline communication, reduce phone volume, and shorten wait times.
The U.S. continues to face a critical and worsening shortage of ophthalmologists. By 2030, according to one industry report, the aging population will require 5.6 million cataract procedures by 2030, with only 16,500 ophthalmologists available. This gap is already being felt, particularly in rural areas, where only 29% of workforce needs are met, compared to 77% in urban areas. This surgeon shortfall, combined with a wave of senior ophthalmologists nearing retirement and a surge in demand, has many practices booking surgeries far in advance.
An alarming 46% of eye care practices reported being understaffed earlier this year. The demand for qualified ophthalmic technicians, in particular, is projected to grow by nearly 15% between 2020 and 2030, but the pipeline of trained professionals isn’t keeping pace. Practices nationwide continue competing for techs, scribes, opticians, and front desk staff.
With long hours, heavy workloads, and financial pressure, burnout remained a top concern. In 2025, many teams echoed the same sentiment: “We’re doing more with less.” This widespread burnout led many practices to focus on building better workplace culture, listening to employees’ needs, and offering strong benefits and growth opportunities to keep staff engaged and supported.
Several states passed laws in 2024 and 2025 that grant optometrists authority to perform certain laser procedures and minor surgeries. The American Optometric Association backed these bills, arguing that enabling optometrists to handle routine surgical tasks can free up ophthalmologists for more complex cases. The trend remains controversial among ophthalmologists but continues to gain traction as states look to increase access to care amid the provider shortage.
While 2025 didn't bring massive changes to the Quality Payment Program, the pressure to perform well in the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) was higher than ever. The performance threshold remained high at 75 points, and the maximum penalty stayed at –9% of Medicare payments. With margins already tight, many practices doubled down on their MIPS strategy or outsourced performance management.
Big changes are on the horizon for MIPS Value Pathways (MVPs), with CMS planning to make them mandatory in the future. In 2025, CMS proposed a specialty-specific MVP for “Complete Ophthalmologic Care,” aiming to create a more streamlined, relevant set of measures for ophthalmology practices.
This year brought a major federal push toward stronger health data interoperability. In July, CMS introduced its new Interoperability Framework Initiative—a voluntary program aimed at improving data sharing among providers, payers, and patients. The vision is for patients’ full health records to be accessible in one place. While many eye care practices aren’t yet positioned for this shift, the initiative clearly signals where health IT is heading, pushing eye care EHRs to support more open data exchange in the years ahead.
Medicare reimbursement tightened again in 2025, with ophthalmology seeing a roughly 2% overall reduction in Medicare allowed charges. One concrete example: the Medicare payment for cataract surgery (CPT 66984) dropped to $521.75 in 2025, about 3% lower than the $537 it was in 2024. These cuts compound over time and challenge financial stability, especially when adjusted for inflation.
Shrinking margins pushed optometry and ophthalmology practices to sharpen their revenue cycle management in 2025. Many turned to specialized RCM solutions that combine automation, integration, outsourced expertise, and eye-care–specific expertise. By addressing front-end issues such as incorrect coding, missing modifiers, and incomplete eligibility checks, practices are preventing costly denials and strengthening financial performance even in a challenging environment. At the same time, they’re taking cues from the retail world and modernizing patient payments with tools like Text-to-Pay, card-on-file, and digital statements, making it easier for patients to pay while reducing days in A/R.
2025 brought no shortage of challenges with tight margins, staffing shortages, regulatory pressure, and shifting patient expectations. But it also revealed something optimistic: eye care is a resilient, growing, and innovative field. From groundbreaking clinical advancements to smarter technology and stronger operational strategies, practices proved they can adapt, evolve, and scale.
As we move into 2026, the practices positioned for a strong year will be those that embrace automation, strengthen RCM, modernize patient engagement, and unify their technology stack. At Sightview, we’re committed to helping eye care practices overcome their biggest challenges with purpose-built technology that streamlines operations and maximizes revenue. If you’re ready to make 2026 your most efficient and profitable year yet, schedule a personalized demo of our all-in-one eye care platform.
Sightview : Nov 5, 2025 12:00:00 PM
Running a successful ophthalmology ambulatory surgery center (ASC) today can feel like trying to stay afloat in a storm. Costs are skyrocketing,...
1 min read
Sightview : Aug 22, 2025 8:02:02 AM
For eye care providers, a strong MIPS score will boost reimbursements, strengthen compliance, and enhance reputation. But MIPS for ophthalmology...
Sightview : Nov 20, 2025 11:45:00 AM
Inflation has impacted every corner of healthcare in 2025, and eye care is no exception. From spiking costs to shifting patient behavior, optometry...
