Arkansas optometry
TO THE EDITOR:
The law governing the practice of optometry in Arkansas has not been updated in more than two decades. While our state’s law hasn’t changed, as with any other field, technology and procedures in optometry have changed in the last 20 years, offering patients advanced, better quality of care.
As a doctor of optometry who has served the communities of Ashdown and Texarkana for 13 years, it’s important to me that I’m able to provide my patients the best and latest care available. Unfortunately, our out-of-date law prevents me from doing that in many cases. As the primary health care professional for the eye, we go through four years of intensive training in optometry school. Right now, we are prevented from performing some of the minor, in-office procedures we are trained to safely provide, and that our patients expect to receive from us.
Legislation being considered by Arkansas lawmakers would address this problem. House Bill 1251 would allow Arkansas optometrists to perform a handful of minor, non-invasive procedures we are trained to perform. These are not major surgeries. They’re simple, in-office procedures that our peers in several of our surrounding states already offer. For example, an optometrist could practice in Oklahoma or Louisiana on a Monday and be allowed to perform one of these procedures, then practice in Arkansas later that week, where they aren’t allowed to offer their patient that same level of care.
This is first and foremost about Arkansans’ access to safe, quality care. Doctors of optometry practice in more than 80 percent of Arkansas counties. Allowing our patients to receive these basic procedures from their optometrists on the day of their visit, instead of enduring the extra costs and often long wait time of a separate visit or visits to see a specialist for something that WE are trained to do. HB1251 would provide a much-needed, long overdue update to the law, and it is absolutely the right thing or the people of Arkansas.
Randall Glass, OD
Texarkana, Ark.