Ophthalmology restrictions fail in Florida

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Two spring bills introduced to the Florida State House and Senate that would have restricted optometric practice in the state failed to pass in May.

The Miami Herald reported May 1 that representatives tabled the House version of the controversial bill that would have required eye-surgery patients to get postoperative care only from medical doctors, not optometrists.

The measure had been pushed by ophthalmologists and officials of the Florida Medical Association as part of a strategy to take jurisdiction over patient care.

But contentious debate on the measure prompted its sponsor, Rep. Mike Haridopolos, R-Melbourne, to declare the bill dead for the session.

Many state representatives said they did not see any convincing evidence that there was a problem with the current activity of comanagement between optometrists and ophthalmologists. Among the representatives who were not convinced was Rep. Rob Wallace, R-Tampa, who never allowed the bill to be heard in his budget committee.

The Florida Society of Ophthalmologists (FSO) is declaring the dead bill a moral victory for ophthalmology in Florida. On its Web site, the Society said that optometrists, who for the past 10 years have attempted to expand their scope of practice in a variety of areas, such as surgery, systemic drugs and hospital and ambulatory surgical privileges, in this session filed no expansion-of-scope legislation.

State Senator Daniel Webster, R-Orlando, sponsored the Senate version of the postoperative ocular care bill, SB 924.

The legislation came close to passing. Sen. Webster attempted to amend the bill to an extensive healthcare reform bill (SB 1558) during the last hours of the session. The amendment, which would have allowed delegation of all postoperative ocular care to an ophthalmologist for all procedures except cataract surgery, where the delegation was required during the first 10 days after surgery, passed 21 to 13 — a majority vote.

However, Senator Don Sullivan, who was at the podium, ruled that the Senate required a two-thirds vote on an amendment to be added to a bill on third reading. Thus the amendment was not added. SB 1558 later that night passed the legislature without the ocular care amendment.

Originally, SB 924 and HB 553 would have authorized only medical doctors licensed under chapters 458 and 459 of the Florida statutes to provide postoperative ocular care. Those chapters pertain to medical doctors and doctors of osteopathic medicine only.