December 1, 2021 | Issue 7 |
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Reminder...2022 IOP/AOA dues invoices will come from the AOA. If your home, office, or email address has changed, AND/OR you would like a bookkeeper or other office staff to receive a duplicate invoice, click here to update your information. |
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LEGISLATIVE UPDATE
There have been very few interim legislative committee meetings this summer. However, the spring primary of 2022 already has nine candidates announced for Governor and several for Lt. Governor. More candidates will be filling for state-wide offices in the upcoming weeks. In the meantime, the Idaho legislature will be reconvening on November 15th. They will take up two issues: 1) the ethics complaint against Representative Giddings and 2) potential legislation dealing with vaccine mandates. Speaker Bedke said he plans to convene the House Ways & Means Committee to introduce any and all bills on that topic. The objective is to get all of the various ideas out to the public.
The Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee held its fall meeting. The take-away is the staggering amount of cash in Idaho’s coffers. The state’s budget surplus is currently a whopping $1.45 Billion! This does not include money in the budget stabilization funds. Combined, there is a 35% cash balance, an amount no one anticipated.
Idaho’s citizen redistricting commission reconvened after a two-week break. The six commissioners have split into sub-committees to work on maps for North Idaho, eastern Idaho, and southwestern Idaho but have not presented updated maps to date. They are under the gun to complete the work before the November 30th deadline to draw new legislative and congressional district maps for Idaho to match population shifts shown by the 2020 U.S. Census.
This is my final legislative report. I am retiring from lobbying, and while I am excited to have time to
spend with family, I will miss all of you. It has truly been a pleasure and honor to represent the optometric profession in Idaho. Lance Giles will be taking over as the IOP legislative advisor. He and I
have worked side by side on IOP issues for the past several years, and I know you are in good hands
moving forward.
Sincerely,
Kris Ellis
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November Update
November Elections – Caldwell Mayor Update
The run-off for Caldwell mayor is scheduled to occur on Tuesday, November 30, 2021. Even though mayoral candidate John McGee already conceded to Jarom Wagoner, the election is still scheduled to occur.
November Legislative Session
On November 15, 2021, the Idaho Legislature went back into session to handle a couple of items. First, the House of Representatives punished Representative Priscilla Giddings (R-Whitebird) for conduct unbecoming a Legislator for publicly outing an alleged rape victim. The House, on a vote of 49-19, formally censured Giddings and removed her from the House Commerce and Human Resources Committee.
Second, the Idaho Legislature considered legislation involving vaccine mandates. After the introduction and consideration of multiple bills, the Idaho Legislature ended up passing only one piece of legislation. Senate Joint Memorial 105 notifies the Biden Administration that the Idaho Legislature opposes vaccine mandates for federal workers and contractors, as well as proposed requirements for large employers and healthcare employers to require vaccination and testing.
The Idaho Legislature finally adjourned the longest legislative session in Idaho history on November 17, 2021. The 2022 Legislature will begin on Monday, January 10, 2022.
Redistricting
The State of Idaho completed its congressional and legislative redistricting process on November 10, 2021, when the Idaho Commission for Reapportionment filed its final report. Every ten years after the decennial census (which is required by the U.S. Constitution), Idaho and the rest of the country, redraws the lines for all of its congressional (Idaho has two districts) and legislative districts (Idaho has 35 districts). In general, the districts are rebalanced and redrawn to ensure the districts contain about the same amount of people, which is in line with the one-person, one vote doctrine.
Idaho will continue to have two Congressional Districts. The Congressional Map is very similar to previous years’ maps, in that it continued to move the 2nd Congressional District further into Ada County. The splitting of Ada County to divide the two Congressional Districts has been occurring for the last 50 years, and it looks like that trend will continue unless overturned by a legal challenge.
In order to address new population increases in high growth areas like the Treasure Valley, Idaho’s Legislative Map was significantly changed and will pit many sitting legislators against other sitting legislators. Here is a table with projected matchups for each of Idaho’s 35 legislative districts. Please note that the letter and the number in parentheses after a legislator's name indicates the legislator’s political party and the previous district that legislator represented. Thus, an R-1 would mean Republican from District One and D-1 would mean a Democrat from District One. Districts with projected matchups between sitting legislators are highlighted in yellow.
Respectfully,
Lance Giles
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Rewrite of our Optometric Act Update: Winter 2021
Where did we leave off?
The IOP Legislative committee had been working with the Idaho Division of Occupational and Professional Licenses (DOPL) to update our Optometric Act to clarify scope, add the word “surgery” into the definition of optometry, and modernize as well as clean up our statute language and structure.
What has happened since then?
DOPL realized that there was going to be too much opposition to the word “surgery” in the definition of optometry, and because this was important to the IOP in reflecting the current optometric scope accurately, we decided to take over the rewrite process ourselves. The IOP also obtained a legal opinion from an attorney with a background in medical law to determine how optometric scope would be impacted with and without the word “surgery” in its definition. The opinion was very well written and gave lots of information on how to best accomplish optometric scope clarity without putting any of our current practice abilities in jeopardy, and also keeping future scope opportunities available.
What’s next?
The IOP will be working with a legislative drafter and the AOA to continue to clean up language and get the law where we want it to be. We look forward to having Daniel Carey, the Chief State Advocacy Officer from the AOA attend our Day at the Capitol event in February. We hope to see many of you in attendance!
So, what do I need to be doing here?
The thing that we are always asking you to do - continue to meet and strengthen your relationships as a key person. As of right now, those meetings can just be focused on getting to know your legislator, getting them comfortable with what the practice of optometry entails outside of glasses and contact lenses, and next level things like volunteering at one of their events, donating to their campaigns, etc. If you are having trouble getting ahold of your legislator, please email me (laurenhuberod@gmail.com) or our policy advisor: Lance Giles lance.giles@thegilesgroup.net . If you have met with your legislator(s) and don’t want to bother with updating the KP dashboard, that’s fine, but please email your regional director or me so we can keep track of our progress with our grassroots efforts. If you are interested in becoming a key person or have an already-established relationship with a legislator, please let us know!
Oh yeah, I forgot about that KP dashboard thing. What’s the deal with that? How do I log in again?
The KP (Key Person) Dashboard is a program that the IOP has invested in that allows us to keep track of what has been done with each legislator and important information about each one so that no one slips through the cracks. This dashboard program includes an in-depth how-to guide at the tip of your fingers: what to say in your first email, personal and professional details about your legislator, where and how to contact them, etc. It also includes a place for you to put notes/updates directly to the legislative committee to keep us in the loop of how things are going. The program then collects all the information our key people obtain from each legislator and compiles it so that we can see how favorable legislation may be moving forward, or what action needs to be taken. All you have to do is go to: https://app.kpdashboard.com/login and enter your cell phone number or email address. As long as we have one of those on file, that’s all you need to log in. If you are unable to log in that way (1) please update the IOP with your correct contact information and (2) ask your regional director for a link or our Executive Director Lisa at execdir@iopinc.org - the link sent to you will be good for 2 hours after it has been opened.
As always, a big THANK YOU to the optometrists who are working hard at strengthening their relationships with their legislators. Your hard work is so appreciated!
Lauren Huber, OD
IOP Legislative Committee Chair
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Insurance Advisory Committee |
Welcome to the new Insurance Advisory Committee. Our Third Party Committee and Informal Medicare Professional Advisory Council have been joined to best manage our insurance issues for our state doctors of optometry.
AOA TPC is always working behind the scenes for all of us in the field of Optometry. "With new laws enacted by Congress, more legislation anticipated this year at the federal and state level, an expectation of additional federal regulation, and a recent Supreme Court ruling affecting the reach of longstanding insurance law, the AOA's Third Party Center (TPC) Executive Committee seeks to use new and traditional paths to challenge undesirable policies and actions of health and vision plans. The TPC seeks feedback on the issues that AOA members are most concerned about for 2021, to pursue with a renewed focus in the coming year as the dust of the COVID-19 pandemic hopefully begins to settle."
The Build Back Better Act removed a Medicare vision benefit increase, but advocates are now focusing on preventing roughly 10% Medicare reimbursement cutbacks on Jan. 1, 2022. While a trio of Medicare pay cuts lurk large on the horizon, Congressional Democrats' $1.75 trillion social spending package advances without a Medicare vision benefit extension, bringing an end to a years-long tale.
After months of negotiations in which legislators dropped the coverage proposals as cost dominated negotiations and it became clear that AOA requirements for fully funding any new benefit could not be met, a scaled-back version of President Joe Biden's Build Back Better Act—one that excludes Medicare vision (and dental) coverage expansions—cleared the U.S. House on Nov. 19. The bill now faces a similarly dubious destiny in the upper body of Congress.
I'll be sure to keep you posted on any updates. Should you have any insurance issues, comments or problems, please do not hesitate to contact me at the new email address listed below.
Best Regards,
Terri L. Haley, OD
IAC Chair
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Your communication committee has been working on two projects recently.
First, we have developed a plan for a Laser Road Show in Idaho. The idea is to have our lobbyist and executive director bring a YAG laser to your region. Local legislators and optometrists would meet together to get to know one another and discuss optometry and laser capsulotomy. Legislators would have an opportunity to “shoot” the laser at a demonstration card or even at their hand to dispel any misconceptions they may have about the laser. Wyoming found this approach to be very enlightening for legislators to learn that we are not talking about performing invasive operating room surgery. The committee will be reviewing the changing legislative district boundaries to be sure the legislators are invited to the appropriate meeting when the time comes. We think this will be a key piece of the effort to update our law.
Second, we helped orchestrate obtaining some great raw video footage at our annual congress of Idaho doctors talking about what it means to be an optometrist today. The footage can be edited and used for social media and to educate the public and legislators about Idaho optometry. Thanks so much to everyone who participated!
Respectively,
Dr. Todd Slusser
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Hello Doctors and Paras!
Another annual Congress has come and gone! I would say that minus a few technical difficulties, it was a great success! All of our speakers brought some interesting information from all aspects of every part of the office. Thank you to Kayla Ashlee, ABOC, Dr. Scott Lewis, and Sharon Carter, ABOC, for speaking! I hope you were able to learn something new and take it back to share with your practice and implement it for the betterment of your patients and office.
A survey went out via email to those who attended - please give your feedback as we begin to plan for next year - we are going to be in Sun Valley, September 29th - October 1st. You’ll want to mark your calendars now and watch for early registration deadlines because we filled up this year in-person for both paras and doctors!
If you ever have any questions about certification for ABO or CPO/CPOA, or you would like to plan some education in your area, I would be happy to help you out! You can always shoot me an email at iop.para.cc@gmail.com.
Tami Arnett
Paraoptometric Committee Chair
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Todd Slusser, OD
President
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Dan Schrempp, OD
Immediate Past President
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Cody Jones, OD
President Elect &
Communication Committee Chair
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James Bewley, OD
Vice President
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Brian Miller, OD
North A Regional Director
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Jenny Ramey, OD
North B Regional Director
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Doug Adams, OD
Southwest A Regional Director
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Shelby Strick, OD
Southwest B Regional Director
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Elisabeth Lehr, OD
South Central Regional Director
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Michael Tucker, OD
South East Regional Director
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Lauren Huber, OD
Legislative Committee Chair
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Terri Haley, OD
Insurance Advisory Committee Chair
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Tami Arnett, ABO, CPOA
Paraoptometric Committee Chair
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Jeff Ness, OD
Membership Committee Chair
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Final notes...
We enjoyed seeing 150 of you and your staff members in Coeur d'Alene at the IOP Annual Congress! An additional 80 doctors received CE virtually. A great turnout! We are working to provide another fantastic event in 2022. If there are specific vendors you would like to see at the exhibit hall, send your suggestions our way. Recommendations coming directly from our attendees are always helpful.
Thank you to Kris Ellis for her years of service with the IOP. We wish her well on her next adventure, which I'm sure will include lots of time with her new grandbaby. Lance Giles will be stepping into Kris's role as IOP Lobbyist. He and Kris have worked together over the last couple of years, making this an easy transition. Wishing Kris a happy & healthy retirement!
The 2022 Day at the Capitol will be on Monday, February 7th. Drs Paul Barney and Aaron Bronner will offer four hours of CE. Be aware that space is limited for the legislative luncheon. We will do our best to accommodate everyone. Registration opens on December 10th for IOP members; you must register online. Watch our website for more details, https://idaho.aoa.org/events.
Please reach out to me if you ever have any questions or concerns, I'm here to help! Thank you for your continued support.
Wishing you a happy and healthy holiday season!
Lisa White
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