See what one seat costs in a year as a local hire and as a dedicated EyeCareWorks virtual assistant at $10 an hour. The wage, benefit and turnover defaults come from Bureau of Labor Statistics data and published research, and you can change every one of them to match your practice.
Your practice
Drag a slider or tap a number to change it.
Enter 15 to 60 hours.
BLS median for receptionists, May 2025. Enter what you pay.
Enter $7.25 to $100.
From BLS data for health care and social assistance establishments with 1 to 49 workers, June 2026.
Enter 0 to 60.
The rate eye care consultants see most often (Ophthalmology Management, 2024).
Enter 0 to 100.
Share of that person's yearly cost. The low end of the 25% to almost 200% range the article cites.
Enter 0 to 200.
EyeCareWorks is $10 an hour, billed weekly for tracked hours. No payroll taxes, no benefits, no setup fees, and a free replacement if the fit is wrong.
Estimated savings per year
$33,305
62% less than a local hire
Cost per year
$10 an hour. Nothing else to add.
Per month
An estimate for planning, not a quote. Wages vary by market, so use your own figures where you have them.
For a local hire, the calculator starts with the wage you enter, times the hours per week, times 52 weeks. Then it adds what an employer pays on top of wages. At private health care and social assistance establishments with 1 to 49 workers, the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts benefits at $9.00 an hour on top of $26.56 in wages, about 34 percent of wages, covering paid leave, supplemental pay such as overtime premiums and bonuses, insurance, retirement, and legally required payments such as Social Security and Medicare (BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026).
Turnover is the cost most budgets leave out. Writing in Ophthalmology Management, eye care consultants report that the turnover rate they see most often is about 25 percent a year. Citing an American Management Association range of 25 percent to almost 200 percent of annual compensation, they apply the lowest figure, 25 percent, to a person's fully burdened annual cost (Ophthalmology Management, July 2024). The calculator multiplies the two, which adds a little over 6 percent to the annual cost of the seat. You can switch it off.
For a virtual assistant, the calculator uses $10 an hour for the same hours and weeks. EyeCareWorks bills weekly for tracked productive hours, with no payroll taxes, no benefits and no setup fees, and replaces a virtual assistant at no charge if the fit is wrong, so there is nothing to add.
| Role | BLS occupation | Median hourly wage, May 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Front desk and scheduling | Receptionists and information clerks (43-4171) | $18.27 |
| Clinical scribe | Ophthalmic medical technicians (29-2057) | $21.91 |
| Billing and insurance | Billing and posting clerks (43-3021) | $23.32 |
These are national medians: half of workers in each occupation earn more and half earn less. BLS does not publish a separate wage for scribes, so the scribe default uses ophthalmic medical technicians, the closest eye care occupation. The billing figure is the BLS median of $48,500 a year expressed per hour. Enter what you pay if you know it. Sources: Receptionists; Occupational Employment and Wages, May 2025; Financial Clerks.
An EyeCareWorks virtual assistant is a flat $10 an hour, billed weekly for tracked productive hours, with no contracts and no setup fees. At 40 hours a week, that is $20,800 a year.
More than the wage. At the BLS national median of $18.27 an hour, a front desk hire working 40 hours a week earns about $38,000 a year. Benefits, payroll taxes and paid leave add about $12,900 at the 34 percent rate from BLS data for small health care and social assistance establishments, and turnover adds about $3,200 at the rates cited in Ophthalmology Management, for a total near $54,100.
Because every departure costs money in recruiting, training and lost time. Eye care consultants writing in Ophthalmology Management most often see about 25 percent annual turnover. EyeCareWorks replaces a virtual assistant at no charge if the fit is wrong, so the calculator adds no turnover cost for the virtual assistant.
Yes. Every EyeCareWorks virtual assistant is a registered nurse, a licensed healthcare professional, or a healthcare graduate, completes 60+ hours of eye care training before day one, holds a HIPAA Certificate of Completion, and signs a Business Associate Agreement directly with your practice.
Wages are May 2025 national medians from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The benefits rate comes from the BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation release for June 2026, and the turnover figures from a July 2024 Ophthalmology Management article. Every source is linked at the bottom of the calculator.
All three are on the calculators page.
A short call to go over the roles you need, the hours, and how soon a virtual assistant could start.
