William L. Rich III, MD, begins term as 2016 president of AAO

William L. Rich III, MD, has begun his term as the 119th president of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, according to a press release from the AAO.

Rich, the AAO’s Medical Director of Health Policy, has more than 20 years of experience in health policy, health care financing and clinical quality metrics. He currently serves as chair of the AAO’s IRIS Registry committee and will continue to guide the implementation of the largest clinical data registry within any medical specialty during his term as president.

William L. Rich III

He was formerly the chair of the American Medical Association’s Resource-Based Relative Values Scale Update Committee and has consulted with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the National Health Policy Forum and the Institute of Medicine. He currently practices general ophthalmology as the senior partner at Northern Virginia Ophthalmology Associates.

“During my term as president, I hope to help mobilize more of our members and raise their voices so that government can more clearly understand the key issues that impact patient care and physicians’ ability to deliver it in a sustained manner,” Rich said in the release.