The Academy is calling on members to help stop a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services proposal to cut reimbursement for 27 office-based eye codes when two diagnostic services are billed by the same physician on the same day for a patient. The CMS proposal would cut the technical component for the second and subsequent services by 25 percent. The Academy believes these arbitrary cuts would have a negative impact on Medicare beneficiaries’ access to high-quality care, and make it increasingly difficult for physicians to maintain a comprehensive private practice.

From the American Academy of Ophthalmology

From the American Academy of Ophthalmology

This meta-analysis has found a pooled 2 percent reduced odds of myopia per additional hour spent outdoors per week in children and adolescents up to 20 years old. This is equivalent to an odds ratio of 0.87 for each hour outdoors per day. These results, considered in conjunction with a systematic review of studies not meeting the meta-analysis criteria, suggest that increasing time spent outdoors could confer a modest, but significant, reduced risk of developing myopia and its progression. Ophthalmology, October 2012