Advocacy News

The Utah legislature is seeking to expand optometric scope to include two laser surgeries, YAG capsulotomy and selective laser trabeculoplasty, in a bill introduced in the state Senate on Feb. 7.

The Academy is engaging with Federal Trade Commission officials to educate them on how onerous requirements in the agency's eyeglass rule would affect ophthalmology practices.

The Academy, with American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery, American Society of Retina Specialists, American Glaucoma Society, and the Retina Society, submitted comments discouraging the adoption of a single, specialty-wide MIPS Value Pathway reporting option.

Bipartisan House and Senate legislation would take proactive steps to address the root causes of an increasingly broken pharmaceutical supply chain.

Military veterans’ eye care, physician payment reform, reducing practice burdens, ensuring patients’ timely access to needed treatments, and increasing member engagement will drive the Academy’s 2024 advocacy efforts on behalf of ophthalmology patients and practices.

State legislatures are already moving to consider optometric scope of practice expansion in three states, including two where ophthalmology successfully defended patient safety last year.

The Academy’s advocacy efforts continue following our successful campaign to have problematic new local coverage determination policies for minimally invasive glaucoma surgery withdrawn at the end of 2023.

The state’s House Committee on Health and Human Resources advanced a bill which allows optometrists to perform surgical procedures taught at a single accredited optometry school, without clarifying standards of education or training.

A new round of floor speeches highlighted the bipartisan agreement among members of the House of Representatives that there is urgent need for Medicare payment relief.

After months of Academy advocacy, Medicare administrative contractor WPS has released a finalized coverage policy for cataract surgery that abandons a proposed indication that a patient has a best corrected vision of 20/50 or worse.