6 AOA advocacy wins in 2025 that set the stage for 2026

AOA restored $12.1 million of doctor of optometry reimbursements from wrongful plan denials. Ongoing, direct AOA advocacy since 2023 has delivered measurable financial relief to the tune of $12.1 million to optometrists by targeting improper plan denials, downcoding, credentialing and claim edit errors. AOA advocates, including the AOA Third Party Center, provide AOA members a means for direct outreach to plans to ensure that time-intensive records requests, inappropriate denials, Medicare Risk Adjustment Audits and downcoding delays were adequately compensated or halted with more than $4.6 million restored in the final half of 2025 alone.  
 
If you experience payer issues, please contact stopplanabuses@aoa.org to enlist AOA support on your behalf.

AOA achieved a 2.5% Medicare physician pay increase for 2026. Staring down the reality of a fifth straight year of automated statutory reductions to Medicare physicians’ pay, AOA advocates successfully appealed to Congress to include a 2.5% physician pay increase for 2026 as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBA). The AOA's leading, perennial advocacy role has laid the groundwork for longer-term reforms to mandate annual positive pay updates.

AOA achieved a permanent 20% tax deduction for optometry small businesses. Also, as part of the OBBA that passed in July 2025, AOA advocates secured a full suite of tax benefits aimed at boosting small- to mid-sized optometry practices, including a permanent extension of the 20% small business pass-through tax deduction. Set to expire in 2026, the tax deduction is estimated to generate $6,000 annual tax savings for doctors. What’s more, AOA advocates prevented a provision that would have barred optometry practices from deducting state and local taxes at the pass-through entity level, preserving a critical financial tool for practices.

AOA achieved legal recognition as a physician-level certifying body for DEA training. Doctors required to complete controlled substances prescriber training will be able to turn to the AOA for an optometry-specific course to meet Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) training and education requirements. AOA advocates ensured a Dec. 1, 2025, law authorized the AOA as a trusted provider of opioid-related education. This new course will be available for optometrists at Optometry’s Meeting®, June 17-20, in Phoenix, as well as on demand in the AOA EyeLearn Professional Development Hub.

AOA ensured optometry on par with medicine and others for federal student loans. Where the OBBA imposed strict federal student loan limits for 2026-2027—capping loans at $20,500 annually and $100,000 aggregate for programs not considered “professional programs" and $50,000 / $200,000 respectively for “professional programs”—AOA advocates secured optometry’s inclusion under the latter, on par with medicine, law and dentistry. To be certain, the AOA expressed concern about the far-reaching consequences of restricting access to educational funding, especially on optometry students, and shared a fact sheet for helping students navigate the changes to federal student aid.

AOA building bipartisan support for VBM reform as Congress looks at health costs. A pair of bills, the Dental and Optometric Care (DOC) Access Act, as well as the Vision Lab Choice Act, garnered over 100 bipartisan Congressional supporters in 2025-2026 as the national conversation on health care policy, access and affordability takes center stage in Washington, D.C. AOA advocates pressed for enhanced federal crackdown on VBMs, resulting in growing oversight and federal investigations, including a new anti-trust probe into doctor tiering, patient steering and optometry practice acquisition strongarm tactics. Now, lawmakers signal their desire to tackle a larger health care legislative package in 2026 that may provide an opening for VBM reform—one that AOA advocates will be sure to leverage as they look to return to Capitol Hill in less than two months.