Regulatory/Legislative News

Online retailer 1-800 CONTACTS now offers its customers a way to obtain a contact lens prescription online through the use of a smart phone and a computer.

The Office of the Inspector General acts as the “enforcer” for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. This office establishes requirements for Medicare providers and creates a plan each year to guide compliance efforts throughout the system. Contractors are kept busy, conducting reviews and audits of provider billing practices as well as reviews of patient records where appropriate.

The Contact Lens Consumer Health Protection Act of 2016 was written to strengthen the Fairness to Contact Lens Consumers Act “to preserve access to accurate information and the contact lenses patients need,” according to the sponsor of the legislation

BOSTON – Optometrists earned more than $18 million in 2014 as a result of financial relationships with the medical industry, according to a study presented here at Optometry’s Meeting.

The United States "will be better off" due to the progress that the Affordable Care Act has made in addressing inadequacies in the health care system, according to a special communication issued by President Barack Obama, JD.

BOSTON – Representatives from the AOA’s federal legislative and third party committees updated the House of Delegates on their successes and challenges here at Optometry’s Meeting.

BOSTON – “I’m going to bring my passion, my love for the profession, my focus, my ethics and my morals – my goal is to make optometry as good as it can be,” incoming AOA President Andrea P. Thau, OD, of New York, told the House of Delegates here at Optometry’s Meeting.

BOSTON – VSP notified the American Optometric Association that it will postpone the implementation of a plan to require doctors to purchase a set amount of its company frames to maintain reimbursements for non-VSP frames.

BOSTON – The American Optometric Association House of Delegates adopted a resolution to modernize scope of practice acts, here at Optometry’s Meeting.

BOSTON – Attacks on the profession are coming from different places than in the past, outgoing American Optometric Association President Steven A. Loomis, OD, told the House of Delegates here at Optometry’s Meeting.