News from the AOA's Blog

My 77-year-old patient, George (not his real name), was waiting for me to get home from Optometry’s Meeting® in Salt Lake City in June. On that Monday morning he appeared in my office stating that for the last few days he had been noticing intermittent episodes of blurry vision. He lives a half-hour from me and one and a half hours from any other provider. He knew there was something wrong, but traveling to another provider wasn’t something he could easily do. As it turned out, he was having intermittent angle-closure attacks, and I helped him get the care he needed. He’s doing well.

If it wasn’t for the AOA advocating on behalf of our profession more than 25 years ago, patients like George would not be able to receive the care they NEED. You see, George is on Medicare. Before 1986, optometrists weren’t considered physicians by Medicare and were not reimbursed for care. This year marks the 25th anniversary of our inclusion in Medicare.

This provision is one of the greatest things to happen for our patients, and we need to protect and build upon the gains made for us 25 years ago.

Parity in Medicare opened the door for us to fight for non-discrimination in many other areas, including with health insurers, managed care companies and other government-sponsored programs. But our fight is not over.

The AOA Advocacy Group in Washington, D.C., along with our many volunteers, continues to work on the following issues:

• Access to Eye and Vision Care – Securing full recognition and inclusion of doctors of optometry in Medicaid (H.R. 1219), the National Health Service Corps (HR 1195) and other federal health programs.
• Children’s Vision – Ensuring that America’s children have the tools needed to succeed in school and later in life by fully defining the new children’s healthy vision essential benefit as direct access to comprehensive eye exams, follow-up care and vision correction treatment.
• Medicare – Preserving the Medicare program for current and future Medicare beneficiaries by preventing nearly 30 percent in scheduled Medicare payment cuts to ODs and other physicians set to take effect Jan. 1, 2012.
• Patient Choice/Provider Competition – Expanding access to quality health care, securing greater choices for patients, and introducing much-needed competition into the health care marketplace by fully implementing key provider non-discrimination safeguards (Harkin amendment).
• Small Business – Eliminating burdensome federal mandates and reducing barriers to the success of small business optometry practices by rolling back onerous provisions, such as repealing the health law’s expanded IRS Form 1099 reporting requirement.
• Military and Veteran’s Health Care – Ensuring that America’s military service personnel and veterans are not forced to wait unnecessarily for the eye and vision care that they need and deserve.
• InfantSEE® – Supporting optometry’s sight-saving and potentially life-saving public health and education initiative that offers comprehensive eye and vision assessments for infants at no-cost (www.InfantSEE.org).

Perhaps one of the issues closest to my heart is children’s vision. I think nearly every optometrist has had the experience of seeing what eye and vision care can do for a child. It may be previously undetected amblyopia, problems with eye coordination, or something as simple as a pair of glasses. These things can change a child’s whole world. And we are the conduit.

Part of our role as optometrists is educating others on the links between vision and learning. I have firsthand experience with this through the School Readiness Summit we held this spring that included 51 partners, mostly non-optometrists.
 I emphasized that millions of children are not receiving essential eye care services, which can prevent eye disease, developmental delays, and school and social achievement problems.

It is critical that we incorporate a comprehensive child vision care system into the public health system and ensure American preschool children have their eyes examined in their first year of life, again at 3 years of age, prior to entering school, and again as recommended by their optometrist.

We got our message across and have 28 partners who signed a Joint Statemetnt. supporting comprehensive eye exams for school-age children as a foundation for a coordinated and improved approach to ensuring school readiness in American children.

It’s also important to remember that none of this is even possible without access. We are in a constant fight to maintain and increase our access. One of the tools we now have to help us in our fight is board certification.

Twenty-five years ago, the AOA fought and won the right for Medicare patients to see their optometrists.

Today the AOA is working to ensure parity for optometrists in third-party plans and in the Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS).  

We have seen the growing reliance on quality measures under those programs, and are pleased that the profession agreed to a board certification/maintenance of certification program that allows ODs to demonstrate commitment to quality patient care. 

I’m pleased to report the first group of ODs to take the American Board of Optometry (ABO) certification exam in June will be able to fully participate in PQRS thanks to the ABO’s efforts. 

Just as we opened doors for ODs in 1986, the AOA is opening doors for ODs now. 

We have a lot to be proud of. I’m proud I can make a difference in the lives of a patient like George, and I’m proud knowing that around the country, every day, many AOA members are making a difference too.

Dori Carlson, O.D.
AOA president