This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Despite legislative victories, more work is ahead, says outgoing AOA president
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
 Joe E. Ellis |
SALT LAKE CITY — Optometrists have recently earned the ability to participate in Accountable Care Organizations, will be eligible for Medicaid electronic health records incentive payments and maintained their position in the veterans administration health systems. However, "we must continue to be vigilant," Joe E. Ellis, OD, outgoing American Optometric Association president, told the AOA House of Delegates.
"Under the 2010 health care overhaul law, optometrists were among the providers excluded from participating in Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), a Medicare demonstration aimed at coordinating care to streamline costs and produce shared savings for providers," Dr. Ellis said in his presidential address at Optometry's Meeting.
The AOA aggressively sought recognition in this program. "When the proposed regulations formally establishing ACOs were issued last month, it was clear that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) heeded AOA in specifically recognizing ODs as participants in ACOs," Dr. Ellis said.
When CMS wrote the rules for electronic health records, it appeared to block OD participation in the Medicaid incentive program, Dr. Ellis explained. "Over the last year, the AOA coordinated with its affiliates and has battled state by state to reverse CMS' misguided decision," he said. "Just this week, CMS officials acknowledged, and Medicaid offices of the Commonwealth of Kentucky confirmed, that all qualifying ODs will be fully eligible for Medicaid EHR incentive payments."
Organized medicine, urged by ophthalmology, Dr. Ellis said, engaged in a 2-year public relations campaign attacking care delivered in the VA by optometrists. "As the revised VA eye care handbook released earlier this year demonstrates, ophthalmology's attacks have been completely rejected and thoroughly discredited at the national level," he said.
"Our victories do not signal that the battles are over," Dr. Ellis concluded. "But they do signal what is possible when we relentlessly pursue our pro patient agenda... When we stand together, nothing is impossible."