- 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
- AOA never stronger takes issue with VSP practices
- Health plans changing tone vision plans not so much
- SGR TPC 2017 Conference
- Conference delivers vital advocacy tools knowledge
- 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
Vision plan advocacy: What doctors need to know
October 2, 2015
Register now for the state legislative, third party conference, Oct. 23-25.
Tag(s): Advocacy, Third Party
Unfavorable vision plan policies often handcuff doctors of optometry to anti-competitive business practices, but an upcoming AOA conference and panel discussion on the subject may offer doctors a key.
The session addresses many of the issues of vision plan business practices in this rapidly changing marketplace.
The AOA State Legislative and Third Party National Conference, Oct. 23-25 in Denver, Colorado, seeks to mobilize the full advocacy resources of the AOA and state associations in responding to the challenges facing optometry, and vision plan advocacy is one area of special attention.
Already this year, AOA—working in conjunction with state associations—helped reform vision plan and health plan policies in nine states—Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Oregon, Texas and Virginia. Such policies included forced participation in vision plans to access health plans, mandatory discounts and fees for noncovered services, and restriction of lab choice, among others.
Gary L. Robbins, Kansas Optometric Association executive director, State Government Relations Committee member and panel speaker, says the profession is starting to see the benefits for optometric practices and their patients in laboratory choice and other ongoing issues in states that have been successful in this area.
"These state laws start the process of leveling the playing field for doctors of optometry with vision plans," Robbins says. "The vision plan advocacy session [at the State Legislative and Third Party National Conference] will provide state leaders with the tools to pass broad noncovered services bills addressing a wide range of [unfavorable] behaviors by vision plans."
Discussion during the vision plan advocacy session will include:
- Contract language and examples of unfair vision plans
- Changes in the vision plan market
- Antitrust considerations
- Legal tools to protect optometric patients
Jason Ortman, O.D., AOA Third Party Center Executive Committee member and panel speaker, says the session addresses many of the issues of vision plan business practices in this rapidly changing marketplace.
"Understanding the evolving business practices of vision plans in the marketplace is vitally important to practicing doctors of optometry," Dr. Ortman says. "Signing any insurance or vision plan contracts without fully understanding the various details of these legal documents and potential tying arrangements can be detrimental to practicing doctors."
As AOA and state affiliates continue working toward advancing fixes to plans regulated on the state level, an AOA-backed bill before the U.S. House, the Dental and Optometric Care Access Act (DOC Access Act), seeks to prohibit these anti-competitive practices on a federal level.
Vision plan advocacy panel speakers also include Zachary Steele, O.D., of Alabama; Thomas Lucas, O.D., of Texas; and Zoey Loomis, O.D., of Colorado.
Register now to attend the conference
Vision plan advocacy is only one of several points of discussion during the conference. Others include legislative and third-party readiness, negotiating contracts, disruptive technology and value-based medicine, in addition to other advocacy sessions and more.
Also featured at the upcoming conference, speaker Tom Daly, Esq., AOA's longtime legislative counsel who drafted the Harkin Law, as well as the new DOC Access Act (H.R. 3323), will cover the enforcement of the national provider nondiscrimination law and specifics of the DOC Access Act during breakfast, 8 to 9 a.m., on Oct. 25.