Volume 9, Issue 12│March 28, 2025 | | | IOA member Caitlyn McHugh-Glab, OD did a segment with radio station WCPT where she discussed being a Change Agent with The Myopia Collective and children’s vision/myopia. | | The interview begins at the 42:50 mark, to watch click below. | | |
World Optometry Day was recognized this week and the World Council of Optometry (WCO) released a revised Why Optometry document. IOA member Sandra Block, OD is the current WCO President and was a contributing doctor for this document.
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IOA member Carrie Roitstein, OD was recently featured in Optometry Times Journal with an her entry Food as Medicine: The role of nutrition in eye health. Congratulations Dr. Roitstein!
| | The Eyes on Tomorrow Fund, previously known as the Legislative Equity Fund, is a dedicated resource created by and for optometrists to support the Illinois Optometric Association’s (IOA) state-level advocacy efforts. This fund directly empowers optometry’s fight for scope expansion, the regulation of Vision Benefits Managers (VBMs), and other legislative battles crucial to protecting the profession and ensuring patient care. Unlike political action committees (PACs), this fund is not used to support candidates but instead provides critical resources for advancing optometry in Illinois. | | |
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Report illegal and unsafe contact lens sales to the FDA & FTC
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Report Vision Plan Abuses to the IOA
The IOA recognizes that Vision Care Plan Regulation Act constitutes a significant stride forward for optometry. However, it doesn't signal the conclusion of our efforts to champion fair contracting with vision plans. In the next few years, our members will be renewing and amending their contracts to reflect the changes in the new law. Throughout this process, we will gain valuable insight directly from our members regarding instances of vision plan abuses.
If you encounter vision plan abuses, we ask that you fill out the form below to report abuse. The IOA will collect this information to prevent further vision plan abuses on behalf of our members.
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10,000 Federal Health Dept. Workers to Be Laid Off
New York Times| By Sheryl Gay Stolberg & Christina Jewett
March 27, 2025
The Trump administration on Thursday announced a layoff of 10,000 employees at the Health and Human Services Department, as part of a broad reorganization designed to bring communications and other functions directly under the purview of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The layoffs are a drastic reduction in personnel for the sprawling health department, which now employs about 82,000 people and touches the lives of every American through its oversight of medical care, food and drugs. Together with previous layoffs and departures, the move will bring the department down to about 62,000 employees, the agency said.
The restructuring will include creating a new division called the Administration for a Healthy America. “We’re going to do more with less,” Mr. Kennedy said, even as he acknowledged it would be “a painful period for H.H.S.”
The 28 divisions of the health agency will be consolidated into 15 new divisions, according to a statement issued by the department. Mr. Kennedy announced the changes in a YouTube video. The staff cuts, reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal, are being made in line with President Trump’s order to implement the Department of Government Efficiency’s shrinking of the federal work force.
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Senate Confirms Trump's Nominees to Head NIH and FDA
MedPage Today| By Joyce Frieden
March 26, 2025
The Senate on Tuesday evening confirmed Jay Bhattacharya, MD, as the next NIH director, and Marty Makary, MD, MPH, as the next FDA commissioner.
The vote for Bhattacharya was strictly along party lines, at 53-47, while three Democrats -- Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen, both of New Hampshire, and Dick Durbin of Illinois -- crossed party lines to vote for Makary; the final tally there was 56-44.
Both nominees fielded tough questions at their confirmation hearings. When pressed by Sen. Bill Cassidy, MD (R-La.), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions (HELP) Committee, for his views on vaccination, Bhattacharya, a health economist at Stanford University, said "It's a tragedy that a child would die from a vaccine-preventable disease. I fully support children being vaccinated for diseases like measles that can be prevented with vaccination efforts."
Questioned on whether he believed more resources need to be poured into investigating a long-disproven link between vaccines and autism, Bhattacharya said he didn't believe there was a link, but added that "what I have seen is that there's tremendous distrust in medicine and science coming out of the pandemic." For parents who may be hesitant about the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, "if I'm confirmed as NIH director, the one lever I'll have is to give them good data."
Bhattacharya's viewpoints on the COVID-19 pandemic, which frequently ran contrary to mainstream science, and his co-authorship of the Great Barrington Declaration, also came up for discussion. Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), asked Bhattacharya to comment on the "proper role" of the NIH during a pandemic, and on how former NIH Director Francis Collins, MD, PhD, "overstepped that role," according to Banks.
Bhattacharya said scientists should "answer basic questions that policymakers have about what the right policy should be," adding that science "shouldn't be pushing mandates for vaccines like the COVID vaccines that were tested for a relatively short period of time. I took the COVID vaccine myself. But I think that the mandates that many scientists pushed have led to the lack of confidence that [much] of the public has in science."
Makary, former medical editor-in-chief at MedPage Today, also faced tough questions at his confirmation hearing before the HELP Committee. During a discussion with Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) on the regulation of the abortion medication mifepristone (Mifeprex), Baldwin said that when Makary came to visit her in her office, "I thought that you were pretty clear with me during that meeting that you were aware of the overwhelming scientific conclusion about the safety of this medication, and that you did not think politics should be involved in decisions moving forward. And I understood from our conversation that you intended to stand behind the FDA's long-standing determination" that the drug was safe.
"But after our meeting -- I don't know if it was you or your minders -- but they followed up with my staff and said they felt that you misunderstood my question and wanted to clarify your answer, which, by my read, implied that you are open to totally re-examining the scientific determination, even with decades of evidence," she continued. "So I want to clearly understand your position: as FDA commissioner, will you maintain current access to mifepristone? Yes or no?"
Makary, a surgical oncologist and medical researcher at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, did not answer her directly, but instead referred back to the risk evaluation and mitigation strategy (REMS) for ensuring the safety of mifepristone. "My position is that of a scientist -- as you know, part of the REMS that was put in, initially by President Clinton in that administration, and then modified under Obama, and then again, under President Biden, requires ongoing data collection, so I can't prejudge that data without looking at it," he said, adding that he would "convene the professional career scientists at the FDA, who have reviewed the totality of data on this and are also looking at ongoing data.... There could be, for example, a drug-drug interaction that may show up on the data."
On the other hand, Sen. Ashley Moody (R-Fla.) told Makary, "I'm so excited to see you here today.... I'm incredibly happy with your nomination. I know you're going to do a great job."
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FinCEN Removes Beneficial Ownership Reporting Requirements for U.S. Companies & U.S. Persons, Sets New Deadlines for Foreign Companies
FinCEN | Press Release
March 21, 2025
WASHINGTON––Consistent with the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s March 2, 2025 announcement, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) is issuing an interim final rule that removes the requirement for U.S. companies and U.S. persons to report beneficial ownership information (BOI) to FinCEN under the Corporate Transparency Act.
In that interim final rule, FinCEN revises the definition of “reporting company” in its implementing regulations to mean only those entities that are formed under the law of a foreign country and that have registered to do business in any U.S. State or Tribal jurisdiction by the filing of a document with a secretary of state or similar office (formerly known as “foreign reporting companies”). FinCEN also exempts entities previously known as “domestic reporting companies” from BOI reporting requirements.
Thus, through this interim final rule, all entities created in the United States — including those previously known as “domestic reporting companies” — and their beneficial owners will be exempt from the requirement to report BOI to FinCEN. Foreign entities that meet the new definition of a “reporting company” and do not qualify for an exemption from the reporting requirements must report their BOI to FinCEN under new deadlines, detailed below. These foreign entities, however, will not be required to report any U.S. persons as beneficial owners, and U.S. persons will not be required to report BOI with respect to any such entity for which they are a beneficial owner.
Upon the publication of the interim final rule, the following deadlines apply for foreign entities that are reporting companies:
- Reporting companies registered to do business in the United States before the date of publication of the IFR must file BOI reports no later than 30 days from that date.
- Reporting companies registered to do business in the United States on or after the date of publication of the IFR have 30 calendar days to file an initial BOI report after receiving notice that their registration is effective.
FinCEN is accepting comments on this interim final rule and intends to finalize the rule this year.
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Why You Should Fight for Scope Expansion
AOA | Staff
March 19, 2025
Optometry education and training has broadened significantly in the past two decades to include injections, lasers and minor surgical procedures. However, in many states, the laws have not been updated to allow optometrists to expand the scope of their practices to reflect this.
“It’s been the case for a long time that our training has exceeded what we are legally allowed to do in many states, but it benefits us and our patients to be able to fully utilize our education,” says Heather Gitchell, O.D., a Colorado Optometric Association and AOA member.
2 reasons scope expansion is important
1) It improves access to care
Paul Barney, O.D., AOA Trustee and chair of the Legislative Committee for the Alaska Optometry Association, points out that in states like his, where roads are sparse, patients’ ability to find care can be limited. Allowing optometrists to use their education to the fullest provides patients with more options.
“We’ve been able to save patients a lot of indirect costs, travel costs, lost time from work and so forth, by expanding our scope,” says Dr. Barney, who was instrumental in passing H.B.103 in 2017, a statute that gave the Alaska Board of Examiners in Optometry the autonomy and the authority to write regulations for anything that is taught at an accredited school or college of optometry. “By not having legislation like this, we’re denying the public better access to care and better competition within eye care.”
In Dr. Gitchell’s home state of Colorado, optometrists are in many more counties than ophthalmologists.
“There are a number of Colorado residents who would choose not to seek care because the trip would be too expensive, too long, too inconvenient for them,” she says. “Being able to provide that needed care in smaller communities or to our patients in general, even in metro areas, has been a huge change and a good change.”
In fact, a study published in Clinical and Experimental Optometry in July 2024 concluded that “the global shortage in ophthalmology services, the increasing prevalence of ocular conditions with an aging population, and the increasing need for access to timely eye care services highlight the urgent need for educational programs to expand the optometric scope of practice.”
2) It results in quality care
“Clinical evidence shows that when optometrists perform these procedures, the results are similar to the outcomes that are achieved by ophthalmologists. And with the greater access to care that optometric scope expansion provides, patients receive excellent quality of care in a more timely and cost-effective manner,” Dr. Barney says.
A study published in a 2023 issue of Optometry and Vision Science looked at the outcomes of YAG laser capsulotomy procedures performed by optometrists and concluded, “Based on the outcomes of this study, YAG laser capsulotomies are effective treatments to improve patient vision that can be safely and effectively performed by optometrists.”
Comparing results of all the debated procedures when done by ophthalmologists and optometrists, Clinical and Experimental Optometry found “these metrics outline the effectiveness of these procedures performed by optometrists and show strong support for future optometric scope expansion.”
Join the fight for scope expansion
If your state still prevents you from using your education and training to the fullest, you can take action now. Here’s how to start.
Make sure you’re up to speed
Practitioners who have been out of school for several years should go back to school to refresh their skills.
“Once the bill is passed, there’s usually educational requirements that everybody has to take to be given the authority to do the procedures,” explains Dr. Barney. He adds that in Alaska, they passed what’s referred to as a board autonomy bill, which gives the board of optometry the authority to expand scope of practice as long as it is taught at an Accredited School of Optometry. “That’s unique. It’s the only bill in the country that gives the board of optometry that authority.”
Educate legislators on optometric education
“It can’t happen the year of the bill dropping. It has to be an ongoing process where a legislator gets to know the optometrist and trusts them as the source they would go to for any eye-related issue that may come through the legislature,” Dr. Gitchell says.
And it can’t just be one legislator here or there.
“In Colorado, we have an optometrist assigned to every legislator, and this relationship-building happens over years. You may think you have one champion, but if you don’t have multiple legislators on board, it’s going to become much more of a fight,” she adds.
Remember, another state’s success helps other states succeed. Whatever happens in a particular state can set a precedent for the next states that are going for scope expansion.
“I know when we were going through ours, we were very careful not to do anything that could be damaging to the next state trying to go for scope expansion. And by damaging, I mean you never want to negotiate out something just to gain something else,” Dr. Gitchell says. “There is going to be a physician shortage, especially in ophthalmology. Ophthalmology has become much more specialized; that leaves these procedures that we’re talking about to PAs or midlevel practitioners. Optometrists, who have already been trained to do these procedures, are the ones who should be doing them. We have a doctoral-level profession with specific training for the eye and for these procedures.”
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Following Up After an Interview Without Bugging the Hiring Manager
You wrote the perfect application and aced the interview. But there’s one more opportunity to make a good impression—the follow-up. You want to show enthusiasm, but you don’t want to seem overeager or annoying. AOAExcel talked with optometry recruiters and practice owners to get their perspective on when, how, and why to follow up after an interview:
- “Regular communication often sets you apart and shows your willingness to contribute to a team,” says Chelsea Page, senior physician recruiter at Access TeleCare. "Sending a quick thank you message within 24 hours speaks volumes.”
- “Doctors are busy, and it may take them a while to get back to you, but they’ll notice if you keep showing interest,” says practice owner Jason Wilson, O.D., of Mississippi.
- “It’s always a great idea to follow up with the hiring manager or recruiter after an interview,” says Caitlin Covey, physician recruiting manager at Eyecare Partners. “Follow-up through email anywhere from 1 day to 2 weeks is expected and shows you have real interest.”
- “Applicants should follow up with interviewers about a week after the interview,” says practice owner Mason Smith, O.D., of South Carolina.
- “Be consistent with your communication, and be sure to respond in a timely fashion—I recommend sending a thank you email within 24 to 48 hours after an interview,” says Jill Maher of Maher Medical Consulting. “Optometry is a small world. Those you are communicating with today may be someone you work with in the future.”
No matter when and how you reach out after an interview, the key is to show gratitude and interest. Email is the popular choice when it comes to communicating, but social media like LinkedIn could also be an option if used tactfully. Overall, make sure to be respectful and appreciative, and you’ll be sure to make a good impression for current and future opportunities.
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Bausch + Lomb Voluntarily Recalls Select enVista IOLs
Ophthalmology Times | By Jordana Joy
March 27, 2025
Bausch + Lomb has announced a voluntary recall of intraocular lenses (IOLs) from its enVista platform, an action taken out of an abundance of caution after the company received reports of complications.1 The cause of said complications could not be immediately explained, according to a news release.
“As much as we believe in the enVista platform, patient safety will always be our number one priority,” said Brent Saunders, chairman and CEO of Bausch + Lomb, in the release. “Surgeons and patients trust Bausch + Lomb, and I believe that this voluntary recall is the best thing we can do to honor that trust.”
The recall is in response to an increased number of reports of toxic segment syndrome (TASS) in the US in conjunction with the implantation of enVista Aspire and enVista Envy IOLs, along with certain enVista monofocal lenses. TASS is an inflammatory reaction inside the eye that can have a variety of causes, but is also a potential complication in any cataract surgery. When TASS is caused by eye surgery, the complication typically appears 12-24 hours after the procedure. All enVista TASS cases reported to Bausch + Lomb responded quickly to treatment, and none have required removal of the lens.
“These reports represent an extremely small percentage of implanted lenses, with a positive prognosis for everyone involved,” Saunders said in the release. “We look forward to identifying a root cause and bringing the enVista platform back to market.”
Communications by Bausch + Lomb to eye care professionals are underway, which includes providing information on impacts lots and return protocols. The company is distributing a letter from Saunders to be sent to eye care providers who conduct business with Bausch + Lomb, along with a TASS fact sheet.
In the letter, Saunders noted that initial TASS reports were centered on enVista Envy, “but in recent days have extended to include enVista Aspire and enVista monofocal lenses.”
“We continue to test multiple lots and types of lenses, and we’re carefully analyzing the reports to detect patterns or common factors,” Saunders wrote in the letter.2 “In addition, we’re convening a group of cataract specialists to understand their perspectives and help us chart the best path forward.”
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Astigmatism Increased in Kids After the COVID Pandemic
— Both the prevalence and severity of refractive and corneal astigmatisms rose in schoolchildren
Medpage Today | By Randy Dotinga
March 24, 2025
The prevalence and severity of refractive and corneal astigmatisms increased among children after the COVID-19 pandemic, a population-based cross-sectional study from Hong Kong showed.
In a cohort of 21,655 children ages 6 to 8 years, the prevalence rate of refractive astigmatism of at least 1.0 diopter (D) increased from 21.4% in 2015 to 34.7% in 2022-2023, and corneal astigmatism of at least 1.0 D increased from 59.8% to 64.7%, reported Jason C. Yam, MD, of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and colleagues.
After adjusting for sociodemographic factors, parental astigmatism, and child myopia, the pandemic was associated with a 20% increase in the risk of refractive astigmatism (OR 1.20, 95% CI 1.09-1.33, P<0.001) and a 26% increase in the risk of corneal astigmatism (OR 1.26, 95% CI 1.15-1.38, P<0.001) compared with the prepandemic period of 2015-2019, they wrote in JAMA Ophthalmology.
"Given the high prevalence of astigmatism, the potential impact of higher degrees of astigmatism may warrant dedicated efforts to elucidate the relationship between environmental and/or lifestyle factors, as well as the pathophysiology of astigmatism, in order to preserve children's eyesight and quality of life," Yam and team concluded.
While the research doesn't definitively put the blame on the pandemic for the rise in astigmatism, it's possible that increased screen time played a role, co-author Ka Wai Kam, MSc, also of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, told MedPage Today. "We hypothesize with increased near work, there is a cumulative change to the corneal curvature, particularly in a developing child, leading to an increase in corneal astigmatism."
Previous research has linked the pandemic to increases in myopia progression among kids in the Chicago area. Kam also highlighted a 2022 study from Hong Kong that linked the COVID pandemic era and less time outdoors to higher levels of astigmatism in children.
However, "unlike their study, which yielded an association between axial length and astigmatism, our team showed that the rise in astigmatism prevalence and severity were independent of the child's spherical value -- the amount of myopia," Kam noted.
The current study suggests that "the rise in refractive astigmatism was a result of a rise in corneal astigmatism -- the difference in corneal curvatures -- and particularly an increase in the steepest curvature (K2)," he said. "Further studies should explore whether there is any causality between corneal astigmatism and visual habits."
Jeffrey J. Walline, OD, PhD, of Ohio State University in Columbus, told MedPage Today that the potential negative impact of the pandemic on astigmatism is a challenge to understand, considering the little that's known about the origins of the condition.
"We know that astigmatism that causes vision problems is related to the shape of the cornea, the clear window on the front of the eye," he said. "However, we don't know much about what causes changes to the shape of the cornea, except parents with astigmatism tend to have children with astigmatism."
Still, "the change in prevalence of both refractive and corneal astigmatism are likely related to the pandemic because the data indicated consistent results using a couple of different and controlling for important factors," Walline added.
Unfortunately, "astigmatism is stable starting in early childhood, so there currently aren't any therapies available to halt or slow the development of astigmatism," he said. In contrast, strategies are available to potentially slow myopia in kids. "But astigmatism is easily corrected by glasses, contact lenses, and laser surgery."
As for clinical messages from the research, Walline said it emphasizes the importance of annual eye examinations for children to allow their vision to be corrected if needed.
For this study, Yam and colleagues stratified all the primary schools registered with the Education Bureau in Hong Kong into seven clustered regions used by Hospital Authority Services in Hong Kong. They included schoolchildren ages 6 to 8 years who underwent comprehensive ocular examinations at two academic medical centers from 2015 to 2023. Mean age was 7.3, and 52.9% were boys.
The magnitude of mean cylindrical power of refractive astigmatism increased from 0.70 D in 2015-2019 to 0.71 D in 2020, 0.81 D in 2021, and 0.87 in 2022-2023 (P<0.001), while the magnitude of mean cylindrical power of corneal astigmatism rose from 1.24 D in 2015-2020 to 1.34 D in 2021 and 1.35 D in 2022-2023 (P<0.001).
As for study limitations, the researchers noted that most of the children were Han Chinese, and the sample size for 2022-2023 was smaller than for previous years.
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AI Tools Demonstrate Effectiveness at Helping People with Vision Loss Complete Tasks
Healio | By Andrew Rhoades
March 25, 2025
People with vision loss, or PVL, were satisfied with the use of AI technologies to complete vision-related activities of daily living, according to a cross-sectional, counterbalanced, crossover study.
Such findings could ultimately help “to guide technology recommendations based on PVL clinical characteristics and functional needs,” the study authors noted.
“With advancements in computing power and digital imaging, the integration of AI into portable tools such as smart glasses and smartphone apps is shaping the future of assistive technology,” study author William H. Seiple, PhD, chief research officer at Lighthouse Guild and a research professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, said in a Lighthouse Guild press release.
According to Seiple and colleagues, there are issues regarding the use of AI in people with vision loss, such as types of information and sensors needed, the nature of the user interface and what algorithm should be used, and “proposed solutions have been appearing rapidly.”
Yet, “the functionality of AI in the hands of PVL must be objectively quantified,” they wrote in Translational Vision Science & Technology.
In the analysis, Seiple and colleagues evaluated two smart glasses, the OrCam and Envision Glasses, and two AI apps, Google Lookout and Seeing AI, based on 14 daily living activities in 25 people with vision loss. These technologies were referred to as assistive artificial intelligence implementations (AAIIs).
The categories of tasks evaluated included:
- searching and identifying, such as identifying a color, describing a room or finding a person;
- reading text, such as reading an article, street sign, medicine bottle or handwriting; and
- reading text in columns, such as text in a TV guide or table of contents.
The data on AAII effectiveness were collected across five 90-minute sessions, including a baseline session, in which usual refraction and no AI was used for tasks, and four sessions in which one of the four AAIIs was used.
Seiple and colleagues reported that the odds ratios for completing text tasks were substantially higher than at baseline in five of the six tasks with OrCam and all six tasks with Envision, Seeing AI and Lookout.
The impact of the AAIIs on the six searching and identifying tasks were more varied. The odds ratios for completing a task were better than at baseline for five tasks with Seeing AI, four tasks with Envision, three tasks with OrCam and two tasks with Lookout.
Participants expressed satisfaction with all the AAIIs, with a median Likert score of 5 out of 5 for Seeing AI, 4 out of 5 for OrCam, and 3 out of 5 for Envision and Lookout.
The researchers acknowledged some study limitations, such as potential volunteer bias. They also did not know if outcomes would have been different if participants used the AAIIs for an extended amount of time at home.
“These technologies hold tremendous promise for creating a more inclusive, accessible world for PVL,” Seiple said in the release.
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