Advocacy News

Your investment is crucial in helping us preserve quality eye care for patients and ensure that surgery is done by surgeons.

The Academy joined a roundtable Wednesday morning with other stakeholders to answer questions from lawmakers on the development of national standards of care in Veterans Health Administration facilities.

National veterans service organizations expressed their support for the Academy’s efforts to preserve quality surgical eye care in the Veterans Health Administration during annual congressional hearings.

Ophthalmology department chairs of several leading medical schools have sent letters to the VA undersecretary for health expressing concern for a recent change to community care guidelines.

Ophthalmologist and U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks sent a letter to the Department of Veterans Affairs Under Secretary for Health expressing concern that the agency removed language from community care guidelines allowing only ophthalmologists to perform invasive procedures.

In a major victory for patient safety, California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that would have allowed optometrists to perform complex eye surgeries with little to no training.

Nine out of 10 physicians surveyed by the American Medical Association said for patients whose treatments required prior authorization, the process had a somewhat or significant negative effect on their clinical outcomes. The Academy continues to work with our members and partners to press for reform.

We’re concerned that new national standards would override state scope-of-practice laws and other veterans’ patient safety policies.

The physician community is urging the VA to reconsider its project to establish national standards of practice.