Advocacy News

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.

The 2024 rule implements reforms to Medicare Advantage plan coverage criteria requirements and to prior authorization that the Academy has supported.

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.

The report from the Kaiser Family Foundation documents how Aetna uses prior authorizations to deny or delay medically necessary care.  

This unusual move by MedPAC, which advises Congress, signals growing awareness of the need for Medicare payment reform.  

The key provision from the Inflation Reduction Act is not expected to affect ophthalmic drugs in the short term.  

We pushed CMS to release the rule, which would reduce the cost of this important bill to entice Senate action by the end of the year.  

We shared several ideas on how to reform physician payment to address both the growing number of annual cuts you face and long-term stability for the Medicare system.  

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.