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- North Dakota secures telemedicine provisions, ignites grassroots advocacy
- How to build productive relationships with legislators
- Why you should fight for scope expansion
- Committee spotlight: AOA’s State Government Relations Committee
- How Arkansas’ major VBM law delivers on calls to promote fairness, doctor-patient relationships
- Texas optometrists mount defense in court and legislature of landmark law on vision plan abuses
- The case for expanding scope of optometry
- In rural America, opportunity for optometry amid shortfall of ophthalmologists
- Destination: Scope expansion
- Double duty: Doctors of optometry bring their vision to state legislatures
- 'High value' strategy sessions prep states’ advocacy
- VBM abuses scrutinized by state policy think tank, U.S. Senate opens new investigation
- AOA, affiliates’ foundational advocacy work advancing optometry
- South Carolina judge overrules Visibly challenge to consumer protection law
- Oklahoma secures optometry’s latest win over vision plan abuses
- What kind of impact is optometry making on the nation’s eye health?
- ‘Profits over patients cannot continue’ with VBMs; Texas testifies at health insurance hearing
- Kentucky attorney general holds Warby Parker accountable for its online vision test
- New York assembly bill potentially sows division in health care
- California warily watches ‘not-a-doctor’ wording in Senate bill
- Latest: Texas defends landmark vision plan law
- West Virginia adds optometric surgical procedures
- Florida optometrists quash effort—again—to pass ‘not-a-doctor’ bill
- South Dakota secures scope expansion for injections, optometric laser procedures
- Affiliates, AOA preparing for fresh attacks on optometry: 'Not-a-doctor' bills are back
- Texas vision plan law, now in effect, sees favorable development in federal lawsuit
- Proposal in Utah would restrict contact lens patient choice, disrupt doctor-patient relationship
- Affiliates, AOA share forward-thinking strategies for optometry’s advocates
- Texas’ vision plan law takes effect, court challenge continues
- Doctors of optometry in New Hampshire earn authorization to provide vaccines to public
- New Texas law halts vision plans’ anti-competitive, monopolistic behaviors
- YAG procedures by doctors of optometry, after cataract surgery, better for patients’ care and convenience, AOA survey says
- Affiliates’ advocacy teams prepare to convene for meeting of the minds
- Doctors of optometry in Texas and Nevada build bulwark against vision plan abuses
- DeSantis decision delivers historic win for Florida optometrists and patients
- AOA and state affiliates rally to decry and defeat discriminatory ‘not-a-doctor’ bills
- Optometry’s scope wins draw new attacks from medical and ophthalmology groups
- Regional Advocacy Meetings prime states’ advocates for 2023 battles and beyond
- Hubble Contacts fined for deceptive trade practices in Texas
- Scope victory for Colorado
- Regional Advocacy Meetings strengthen states advocacy
- Virginia scope advancement
- 1-800 Contacts’ attempt to undermine law thwarted by Georgia doctors yet again
- MOA rebuff insurers reprisals against Mississippi eye care providers
- New York gains oral medication prescribing authority
- California amends optometry’s approved treatments, medications and testing
- Kansas Insurance Department puts vision plans on notice
- State advocates fighting to defend and advance our profession
- The scope of success
- State Advocacy Summit amplifies lessons from year of historic scope victories
- Texas scope expansion gains doctors oral meds, glaucoma authority
- Wyoming expands scope to include contemporary laser-excision procedures
- Mississippi scope progresses, other states seeing early successes
- 7 states authorize doctors of optometry for COVID-19 vaccinations
- Massachusetts scope win adds glaucoma authority
- Going further-expanding advocacy efforts and educational and professional development efforts
- Pennsylvania and Iowa earn big victories to expand scope of practice
- Optometry patients win in Arkansas as ballot challenge to expanded practice law is invalidated
- VSP policy change may violate states patient protection laws
- Court-appointed official deems signatures at heart of Arkansas scope saga invalid
- Arkansas scope saga necessitates urgent action
- Scope expansion to save Americans billions annually
- State Government Relations Center presenting at Republican Attorneys General Association
- Arkansas secures expanded scope of practice
- Maryland expands scope of practice
- AOA state affiliates blaze path for optometry’s future
- Optometry can contribute high-quality health care at affordable prices
- AOA president Driving change
- NJ Vision Plan Bill 2018
- Massachusetts seeks glaucoma care expansion
- Alaska-Georgia legislative victories
- South Carolina legislators override veto safeguard patients vision health
- Georgia Nebraska advance patient centered legislation
- Indiana navigates telehealth bill exempts ophthalmic devices
- FTC DOJ weigh in on Massachusetts glaucoma care expansion
- Arizona No on contact lens prescription extension
- Kentucky heralds third party triumph in new law
- State association challenges mobile refractive service
- Texas doctor successfully challenges Aetna’s policy on panels
- Proposed state legislation doesnt address patient safety
- AOA steps up fight against 1 800 Contacts anti patient legislation
- Louisiana Governor Jindal signs expanded scope of practice bill
Study: ‘Unprecedented’ optometry scope of practice expansion benefits patients
May 7, 2025
The gains were strongest for Medicare beneficiaries and rural patients.
Tag(s): Advocacy, State Advocacy
Key Takeaways
- New research recognizes optometry scope expansion as “unprecedented.”
- The findings reinforce that expanding scope of practice for doctors of optometry fills a gap in eye care, given the shortage of ophthalmologists, especially in rural areas.
- The AOA State Government Relations Center (SGRC) is a group of seasoned volunteers and staff supporting all state advocacy efforts.
- The AOA’s Future Practice Initiative is one tool in the SGRC arsenal for supporting state scope initiatives that include lasers. States considering scope efforts should consult with SGRC for more information.
Optometrists have secured the most significant expansion of their clinical responsibilities in U.S. medical history—allowing them to perform specialty procedures on a broader scale than psychologists, pharmacists and dental hygienists. According to new research from West Virginia University, this scope of practice (SOP) expansion has increased patient access to critical eye care, with patients on Medicare and those in rural communities experiencing the greatest benefits.
“This paper shows that we are accomplishing our goal to allow doctors of optometry to practice safely at the level we are trained,” says John Whitlow, O.D., chair of AOA’s State Government Relations Center (SGRC). “This opens up access to more obtainable and convenient care, especially for patients in underserved and rural communities. Bottom line: better care for our patients. Hopefully, this will encourage other states in their fight for scope enhancements.”
The AOA and its affiliates have played a key role in helping doctors of optometry win SOP expansion, including the use of laser surgery, in over a dozen states and counting: Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming
“This is an unprecedented SOP expansion,” write the study’s authors, Kihwan Bae and Liam Sigaud. “The optometrist SOP expansion to laser surgical authority could have profound implications as a case study to inform SOP policies [for other types of healthcare providers.]”
Key findings from the research include:
- The number of Medicare beneficiaries receiving secondary cataract procedures (YAG laser posterior capsulotomy) increased in states with SOP expansion. According to the study’s analysis of 2022 data, states with early SOP reform— Oklahoma and Kentucky—saw an 18.5% increase in these procedures among Medicare beneficiaries. Later SOP reform was also associated with an increase but on a smaller level that was not statistically significant. (Overall, states with early SOP reform experienced greater benefits, indicating that “it takes time for practitioners to adapt and for states to fully benefit from the policies.”)
- In states with SOP reform, optometrists gradually replaced ophthalmologists in the increasingly competitive market for laser surgeries.
- Evidence suggested that the impacts of optometrist SOP expansion were larger in rural areas than urban environments, indicating that populations with access issues would benefit most. Other findings suggested that optometrist SOP expansion would also benefit “elderly, low-income, or marginalized populations, who may have more limited access to vision care than the general population.”
In conclusion, the authors wrote: “These findings suggest that expanding optometrist SOP fills a gap in eye care, given the shortage of ophthalmologists, especially in rural areas.”
AOA, affiliates committed to advancing optometry
Launched in 2018, the AOA Future Practice Initiative is an operational partnership alongside affiliates that helps leverage advocacy strengths to challenge historic impediments to full-scope optometric care. That close collaboration with the AOA’s State Government Relations Committee (SGRC) continues to not only produce meaningful scope advancements but also keeps in check egregious, anti-competitive and anti-patient vision plan policies, as well as attempts to roll back optometric care.
“The future of optometry and access to critical patient eye health and vision care lies in the ability for doctors of optometry to adapt and expand the profession’s scope of practice, which has long been a key priority for the AOA and affiliates across the country,” says AOA President Steven T. Reed, O.D. “The AOA is committed to supporting the fight for this important progress across the country.”
As part of these efforts, the AOA’s SGRC Regional Advocacy Meetings prove pivotal opportunities for grassroots advocates, affiliate leaders and volunteers across the nation to compare playbooks for statehouse advocacy strategies. If AOA state affiliates are interested in elevating advocacy in their states, save these dates for the AOA State Government Relations Center (SGRC) Regional Advocacy Meetings in 2025.
Registration will open soon, and additional details will come.