- Anthem Health fined for violations in Maine
- AOA, affiliates take on VBM lobby’s attacks on optometry
- Surveys say patient and doctor concerns about health industry middlemen on the rise
- Town hall draws hundreds as AOA and affiliate advocacy earns back millions
- AOA to update profession on health, vision plan advocacy efforts
- VSP warned on campus misinformation, efforts to divide the profession
- Talk of the townhall: Doctors view plan abuses as threat to doctor-patient relationship and quality care
- Don’t miss how AOA and affiliates are fighting against vision plan abuses
- AOA, state affiliate tracking California lawsuit alleging VSP monopolistic practices
- When getting paid will cost you
- Optometry’s wins over abusive vision plans stacking up
- What defines the value of care we provide?
- AOA survey finds discrimination by health and vision plans
- Aetna Prior Authorization
- Medicare Advantage claim denials
- AOA, affiliates prompt changes to MAC claims processing
- Payer issues hot topic at AOA on Capitol Hill
- AOA and state associations target plan abuses
- Be a better negotiator on payer issues
- Anthem stops unilateral downcoding of eye codes
- Congress probes vision plan policies
- vision plan reimbursment
- aoa challenges VSP plan
- AOA fights back against discriminatory vision plans
- SGRC-TPC-Conference
- AOA affiliates assemble advocates to address evolving payer issues
- NAVCP Patients doctors come out ahead in states vision plan fights
- VSP spells doom gloom
- Health plans changing tone vision plans not so much
- SGR TPC 2017 Conference
- Conference delivers vital advocacy tools knowledge
- Vision plan advocacy What doctors need to know
- State third party conference offers advocacy essentials
- AOA backed DOC Access Act targets health and vision plan abuses
- AOA secures important wins in historic SGR reform legislation
- AOA continues fight for permanent SGR fix advises members to hold claims
- House advances SGR fix AOA secures key role for ODs in sweeping Medicare changes
- AOA and Congress work toward permanent SGR fix
UPDATED: AOA, never stronger, takes issue with VSP practices
June 30, 2016
The stakes have never been higher for doctors of optometry and patients.
Tag(s): Advocacy, Third Party
The AOA has never been stronger, and it's working toward making itself even stronger in the face of threats to the optometric profession and quality patient care.
That is the message from AOA President Steven A. Loomis, O.D., and AOA President-Elect Andrea P. Thau, O.D. On June 24, the week before Optometry's Meeting®, Drs. Loomis and Thau co-signed an electronic message sent to members.
"We have pressure from medicine, pressure from online and mass retailers, pressure from online pseudo-technologies and, of course, pressure from multibillion-dollar vision plans that seek to devalue the care we provide and force us into a race to the bottom," Drs. Loomis and Thau say.
"Especially troubling of late are the misguided policies and priorities of VSP, a company that seems to be arrogantly committing itself to placing its bottom line ahead of doctors' ability to provide full-spectrum, quality care and doctor-patient decision-making," they add.
The AOA mailed a letter on June 27 to VSP Global Chairman of the Board Daniel Mannen, O.D., taking issue with several of the company's corporate practices. The letter was signed by Drs. Loomis and Thau.
In the letter, AOA:
- Called VSP's Premier Provider program "fundamentally misleading to patients, unfair to doctors, and at odds with the delivery of quality care."
- Took issue with VSP's frame policy, which requires doctors of optometry to carry VSP-owned frame lines or face a cut in reimbursements.
- Reiterated AOA's support for Dental and Optometric Care Access Act (H.R. 3323). The legislation, backed by the AOA and the American Dental Association, cracks down on vision plan abuses.
On July 1, VSP announced that it was postponing implementation of the frame policy.
The AOA remains vigilant in advocating for vision plan practices that enable high-quality, patient centered care, and ensuring that vision plans follow all relevant laws and regulations intended to protect doctors of optometry's ability to apply all of their skills, education, and professional judgment in the care provided for patients.
Further, the AOA just produced a Q&A for doctors of optometry on what they should know before signing the VSP Network Doctor Agreement (NDA). The Q&A was created in response to an email sent recently to network doctors asking them to sign an electronic copy of their NDA "to ensure there is no break in service" as a VSP provider.
Note: Whether a doctor of optometry decides to provide services to a particular customer or receive products or services from a particular supplier or provider must be the unilateral decision of that doctor and not the result of conversations with or among competitors. Click here to learn more about AOA's antitrust policy.
How can doctors of optometry help?
- Ask your member of Congress to support H.R. 3323. Use the AOA Legislative Action Center to contact your representative now.
- Contribute generously to AOA-PAC, AOA's political action committee, which supports federal candidates who support optometry.
"Our association is strong, and with your increased participation it will become even stronger," Drs. Loomis and Thau say. "The stakes have never been higher for our profession. As Benjamin Franklin famously said, 'We should all hang together or surely, we will all hang separately.'"