"This proposed legislation puts the health and well-being of millions of Floridians at risk. This bill would grant broad and unprecedented surgical privileges to optometrists who are not medical doctors, never attended medical school, and who are certainly not adequately trained to perform scalpel surgery, laser surgery, or prescribe narcotics.
Legislative News
The first annual Florida Society of Ophthalmology (FSO) Leadership Luncheon was held in conjunction with the Masters in Ophthalmology 2011 Annual Meeting on Saturday, June 25, 2011 at The Breakers in Palm Beach. The Luncheon was very well attended by an interested and enthusiastic group.
The American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) has joined a coalition of other medical associations in an American Medical Association (AMA) grassroots campaign calling for a permanent Medicare physician pay fix. The coalition is advocating for repeal of the sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula that is used to update Medicare physician pay. Physicians are scheduled for a 30 percent Medicare pay cut on Jan. 1, unless Congress intervenes.
The American Medical Association has filed an amicus brief urging the Florida Supreme Court to uphold the state's limit on subjective awards for noneconomic damages.
The AMA, in a brief filed Thursday, joined other organizations representing Florida physicians, hospitals, small business owners and their insurers to ask the Court to preserve patients' access to more affordable medical care.
In a letter sent to members of the Joint Congressional Committee on Deficit Reduction last week, the AMA and 116 state and specialty medical societies asked the committee to include repeal of Medicare's flawed payment formula, the sustainable growth rate (SGR), in its spending plan.
The 2012 Legislative Session will start in just a few short weeks. The session is convening two months early on Tuesday, January 10, 2012, and will last for 60 days due to the Special Reapportionment Session that occurs every 10 years to redraw legislative and congressional district lines.
This is an article about optometry oral prescribing bills that were filed to grant optometrists oral prescribing privileges.
The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) today renewed its controversial recommendation that Congress permanently repeal the sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula, using cuts to specialists
During the 2011 Legislative session the FSO language requiring the Board of Medicine (BOM) and the Board of Osteopathic Medicine (BOOM) to create a standard informed consent form for cataract surgery was passed in HB 470.
Organized optometry was recently successful in Kentucky in obtaining legislative authorization to perform surgery, and has made it clear that Florida will be the next battleground for expanded scope of practice.