Legislative Corner
Ellis Consulting
Legislative Update, February 26, 2021
Despite social distancing and limited in-person interaction, the legislature is heading into the presumed midway point. They have printed over 500 pieces of legislation, many dealing with the continued ramifications of the pandemic. These include giving the legislature the authority to reconvene during a pandemic, clarifying health districts' authority, limited liability immunity continuation for schools and businesses, spending of federal Covid dollars, several telehealth bills, and absentee voting changes.
Health Care Related Legislation
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HB 42 Medical Debt Collection Extension: For patients treated prior to July 1, 2021, this legislation allows the provider to take extraordinary collection action without meeting the notification requirements. This legislation has passed the house and is on the senate's third reading calendar.
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HB 149 Limited Liability Immunity: This legislation extends to July 1, 2022, the law enacted during the special session that gives limited liability immunity to schools and businesses during the pandemic. This legislation is ready for a hearing in House Judiciary and Rules.
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HB 179 Interstate Telehealth: This legislation, which is not supported by any health care provider associations, would allow health care providers in other states to practice in Idaho without a license. This bill is causing much concern over public safety and the regulatory boards' ability to investigate complaints. This legislation was printed in the House Business Committee but was referred to the House Health and Welfare Committee, where it presumedly will NOT have a hearing.
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SB 1126 Virtual Care Act: This legislation is the result of the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare's Telehealth Task Force's recommendations in collaboration with other stakeholders from the health professions. It updates the Idaho Code Telehealth Care Act by changing the term "telehealth" to "virtual care" and clarifies virtual care practice requirements. The bill expands Idaho citizens' ability in rural and underserved areas to access health care from providers who are not physically present in a patient's geographical area. The bill also establishes a virtual care advisory board to coordinate, plan, and conduct outreach to increase the utilization of virtual care in Idaho. This legislation passed out of Senate Health and Welfare with one no vote and is awaiting a vote on the Senate floor.
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SB 1127 Telehealth Technologies: This legislation eliminates the requirement for a "two-way audio or audio-visual interaction" to establish a valid provider-patient relationship for all telehealth encounters and instead allows providers licensed in Idaho to establish a provider-patient relationship with any available technology that is sufficient to evaluate or diagnose and appropriate to treat an Idaho patient. Idaho licensed providers continue to be held accountable to the community standard of care through their relevant regulatory board. This legislation is awaiting a hearing in Senate Health and Welfare and may not have a hearing at all.
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SB 1084 Licensure Review and Sunset: This legislation relating to occupational licensing reform and provides for the regular review of existing licensure requirements and regulations, also known as a "sunset" review. The sunset process is intended to determine the appropriateness and necessity of existing regulation and provides a regular opportunity to reduce or eliminate unnecessary regulation. It provides the framework for the sunset review process and the criteria to be evaluated when determining whether existing regulations are still necessary and appropriate. This bill unanimously passed the Senate and will have a hearing in House Business next week.
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Legislative Committee
Dear Optometric Colleagues,
While 2021 has continued with many of the challenges of 2020, one challenge that we are working on rectifying on the legislative committee is that of organization. In the heat of the legislative battle of 2020, we found that despite our best efforts to develop an organized way to contact and keep track of all that had been and needed to be done in keeping in touch with our legislators, some lawmakers slipped through the cracks. Our answer to that was investing in the Key Person Dashboard program.
For those of you who missed our most recent Legislative Zoom call, we have a new program that we are utilizing to assign optometrists to their legislators to establish a “key person” relationship so that lawmakers have someone to talk to when legislation regarding eye care comes across their desks. These relationships are essential to any future legislative efforts. For those of you that are new to being active on the political front, a fantastic part of the program is how easy it will be to know how to establish those relationships - what to say or write, how and when to reach out, and what kind of messages you should be relaying. Please let us know if you’re interested in becoming a key person for one of our legislators - or if you have a relationship already established!
One of those legislative efforts that needs to be addressed - whether we like it or not - is updating our Optometric Act. If you recall, the whole reason we started the process of rewriting the law that governs how we practice optometry in Idaho is because of the executive order issued in 2017 that mandated that all boards look at their law and found that (surprise!) our law that was written in 1972 was completely antiquated and needed a rewrite. Our legislative committee is taking a hard look at the draft that we submitted to legislators in 2020 to try to find ways that we can update the language - with or without scope clarification - in a way that might be more palatable to lawmakers while continuing to allow optometrists in our state to practice at the level to which we are accustomed.
We will continue to keep everyone as updated as possible while we work through the practice and hope that you will join us in our efforts to strengthen our grassroots with legislators by stepping up, reaching out, and becoming a constituent your lawmaker can reach out to when needed for advice.
I hope to see you in person at our 2021 Congress in beautiful Coeur d’Alene!
Lauren Huber, OD
IOP Legislative Chair
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Membership Committee
Welcome to the IOP, Drs. Jeremy Ball, Alexandra Hollingshead, and Brent Sexauer!
Watch for text messages regarding legislative updates and other IOP news!
The IOP on Social Media
We will continue to keep you updated on the latest trends in eye care, opportunities for education, further involvement, and ways you can encourage patients to seek comprehensive eye care. Information you can use for your practice and pass along to your patients with weekly posts from the Think About Your Eyes campaign and other announcements from the IOP or AOA.
Please take a look at Facebook's Idaho Optometric Physicians or follow us on Instagram @idaho_optometric_physicians.
Jeff Ness, OD
IOP Social Media
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IMPAC - Informal Medicare Professional Advisory Council |
Dear Colleagues,
I hope everyone is having a great 2021 so far. I have not had an IMPAC meeting in some time due to the changes moving away from quarterly meetings. I have nothing to report in my column at this time, but please contact me with any questions about CMS that do come up. I will notify you if there are any new LCDs concerning optometry at our next meeting.
Sincerely,
Gideon Bender, OD
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Third Party Center
Greetings Fellow Optometrists!
We’ve survived the worst of winter and spring is calling. It’s also time for another newsletter.
I’ve got a couple of things that came up this past quarter I thought I’d share with you just in case you’ve had similar issues. If your Medicaid claims or medication prescriptions are being denied, Medicaid has a new provider credentialing portal that has bugs in it. You’ll have to go to the new website and re-credential. When you get to the part about treating ocular disease, it will ask you if you treat ocular disease and then will ask for a certificate number. According to Gainwell Technologies (our Medicaid administrator), "The workaround until this issue is fixed is to enter their regular license number in that area when checking yes." If you continue to have issues, you can reach out to Gainwell through your portal. They are available Monday - Friday, 7 am to 7 pm.
The next issue that came up had to do with getting a denial from RR Medicare for a service code we regularly bill for, which they claim we are not licensed to bill for. I don’t have a shortcut for you, but I do have instructions and a contact for you. You’ll need to contact RR Medicare and provide them with the following information: Provider’s NPI, PTAN, Tax ID, patient’s Medicare ID #, Name of patient, and DOS. Here’s the phone number: 888-355-9165, opt 5.
That’s all for now. Never hesitate to reach out to me for any insurance question. In the meantime, Be Safe, Be Happy, Enjoy Life!
Terri L. Haley, O.D.
IOP TPC Rep
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Paraoptometric Committee
Greetings, Doctors, and Paras!
Great news! We have our schedule for Congress for the Para track in Coeur d'Alene! Para classes will start at 1:00 PM on Thursday, October 14th, and continue all day on Friday, October 15th, so mark your calendars! Registration packets will be coming out soon, and you can save some money by registering early. Right now, our maximum in-person will be 60 paras, but we are also working on offering a virtual option as we did in 2020.
Our speakers include Sharon Carter, ABO, NCLE, who came highly recommended by Lynn Lawrence (last year’s speaker), Kayla Ashlee, ABOC, with Spexy, and Dr. Scott Lewis, OD, one of our IOP members. I think we have a good variety of classes to offer everyone in your office! I am most excited about the classes with Dr. Lewis - the brain and the visual systems are just mind-blowing!!
For those looking for continuing education credits - if you need to renew for 2021, you may want to get some of your credits before Congress. CPC deadline is October 15th, which is right in the middle of Congress! So, I don’t want you to miss your renewal banking on the credits from Congress! ABO will likely have a similar date - please don’t delay! If your doctor is an IOP/AOA member, you can access free credits through the AOA with online classes as their optometric employee. Just sign with your AOA login, search EyeLearn and there, you can find several education courses. Please contact Lisa White, execdir@iopinc.org, if you need assistance logging into your AOA account.
Reminder:
- CPC certification requires 18 credits, 9 of which need to be CPC. The other nine can be ABO, NCLE, and even COPE approved.
- ABO requires 12 credits, which can only be ABO or NCLE approved
- Watch your deadlines!
See you in October!
Tami Arnett, CPOA, ABOC
Paraoptometric Committee Chair
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Executive Director
Hello IOP Members,
I hope you are well and are enjoying the new year!
As a thank you for scrolling all the way through our first newsletter of the year, I'll try to keep my comments short. ;)
Planning for the 2021 IOP Annual Congress is well underway. Congress will offer 18 hours of education from 1:00 pm on Thursday, October 14th to 3:00 pm on Saturday, October 16th. At this time, in-person seating is limited to 80, but you will have the option of attending virtually again this year. (Click to read the Idaho Board of Optometry modified credit requirements.) We look forward to welcoming Drs Melton & Thomas, Dr. Haynie, Dr. Mong, and Dr. Lampa as our 2021 speakers. You can read about the paraoptometric track in the "Paraoptometric Committee" section above. Registration opens on April 15th, I hope to see you in beautiful Coeur d'Alene!
Are you utilizing your member benefits?
Contact me with questions or comments, and thank you for your support of the IOP.
Lisa White
IOP Executive Director
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