ADVOCACY
Optometry’s expertise on pediatric health and screen time dangers featured in U.S. Surgeon General’s policymaking symposium
Health Care Alliance for Patient Safety Chair and Past AOA President David Cockrell, O.D., joined federal health leaders at a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services symposium examining the impact of screen use on children, ensuring myopia, early detection and children’s eye health were front and center in national conversation.
Critical moment: AOA mobilizes for VBM reform
Nearly 35 AOA Federal Keypersons mobilized for a targeted Capitol Hill fly-in at a critical moment for federal Vision Benefit Middlemen (VBM) reform, urging congressional leaders to advance bipartisan protections for patients and their doctors.
Illinois enacts new protections against abusive vision benefit practices
New law strengthens transparency, protects patient and provider choice and expands accountability for vision benefit middlemen, building on 2023’s Vision Care Plan Regulation Act.
Connecticut doctors secure Medicaid payment parity for optometry
New law eliminates a longstanding reimbursement disparity and directs an additional $2.27 million in Medicaid funding to optometric care—recognizing the doctors who provide nearly 9 in 10 Medicaid eye exams in the state.
A blueprint for children's vision
Built by optometrists, Ohio’s children’s vision model shows how grassroots advocacy, clinical care and community trust can transform access to care.
New study adds to growing body of evidence supporting contemporized optometric scope
Patient interviews reinforce what decades of research and practice continue to show: expanding optometric scope improves access to timely, patient-centered eye health and vision care.
AOA fights to ensure health plans continue to credential optometrists
New resource available to doctors of optometry who want to advocate for patients.
AOA expands the Future Practice Initiative to support priority legislative pursuits
The FPI has helped many states win laser scope legislation. Now they open the playbook for more.
Historic win: Vermont advances optometry’s nationwide scope momentum
Vermont becomes the 17th state to authorize optometric laser procedures—and the third state in 2026 to modernize optometric practice.
Arkansas doctors continue to fight for transparency and fair compensation
Public hearings further reinforced support for the state’s VBM rule, Act 142.
Louisiana unanimously approves comprehensive VBM regulations
New law sets reimbursement floors, bans coercive contracting and limits the ability of vision benefit middlemen to steer patients away from independent providers.
AOA calls on FTC to scrutinize Eyebot kiosk
In its latest action targeting retail vision kiosks, the AOA is urging an investigation into whether marketing language violates federal consumer protection rules.