Help the Academy Defeat FTC’s Contact Lens Proposal

The Academy is launching a campaign to defeat a federal proposal to place new administrative requirements on contact lens prescribers. The Federal Trade Commission, in its proposed changes to the Contact Lens Rule, continues to insist on an onerous and excessive process that would require prescribers to store three years of prescription receipt verifications. 

Make your voice heard by submitting comments against new administrative burdens in the Contact Lens Rule before the July 29 deadline. 

That prescription-receipt verification requirement would unfairly target our profession, as FTC has shared scant evidence that ophthalmologists aren’t in compliance with the existing rule. We’ll formally submit our position in advance of the end of the comment period in late July. 

In its latest proposal, the FTC expands the available options through which a prescriber can get confirmation that a patient has received a contact lens prescription: 

• Requesting that the patient acknowledge receipt of the prescription by signing a separate confirmation statement
• Requesting that the patient sign a prescriber-retained copy of the prescription that contains a statement confirming the patient has received it
• Requesting that the patient sign a prescriber-retained copy of the sales receipt for the examination that contains a statement confirming the patient received the prescription
• Providing the patient with a digital copy of the prescription and retaining evidence that it was sent and received or made accessible, downloadable and printable 

Prescribers would have to maintain evidence that they satisfied the Confirmation of Prescription Release requirement for at least three years, a similar proposal the Academy opposed last year.