COT's refracting and charging???

[gogetter]

Im in Houston, Tx and there is a person who owns an Optical and has a "refracting" lane. he charges 25bucks for the rx and you have to get your glasses there and cannot take the rx elsewhere. surely this is still illegal right? can he be reported? apparently hes been doing it for years!! Who and where would you report this to??

[optical24/7]

I know whom you are talking about. This guy has a MD write off for him. And his exam is 25 bucks IF you buy glasses from him, not much different than some OD advertise here. I'm not a particular fan of this particular optician, but more power to him, we all need to strive for independance.

[chip anderson]

It's illegal because he is refracting (unless he has an M.D. or O.D.) on premices.
It's illegal because under Eyeglass I he must give a written Rx to the patient in his hand to take to the optician of his choice at the time of examination. (Of course most prescribers today are guilty of this daily)

But according to some of our legislators in Mississippi who have been quoted as saying: "It ain't illegal unless you get caught."

Chip

[Oedema]

report the MD to the medical board for not releasing the Rx .... If he's going to let someone use his license then he should be aware of the consequences.

[braheem24]

It's illegal because he is refracting (unless he has an M.D. or O.D.) on premices.
It's illegal because under Eyeglass I he must give a written Rx to the patient in his hand to take to the optician of his choice at the time of examination. (Of course most prescribers today are guilty of this daily)

But according to some of our legislators in Mississippi who have been quoted as saying: "It ain't illegal unless you get caught."

Chip

If it's an MD and he's only refracting and he only refracts if they buy glasses from him, there's nothin illegal about it.

[gogetter]

I know whom you are talking about. This guy has a MD write off for him. And his exam is 25 bucks IF you buy glasses from him, not much different than some OD advertise here. I'm not a particular fan of this particular optician, but more power to him, we all need to strive for independance.

we talking the NW area right?

[gogetter]

If it's an MD and he's only refracting and he only refracts if they buy glasses from him, there's nothin illegal about it.

Not an MD.
He will refract you only if you buy glasses from him. 25$
And you cannot take your Rx. It stays w him.

I believe if you DO want to take your Rx he faxes it to an MD's office and u have to pick it up there.

Just wasnt sure if this was the "loop hole" or flat out illegal.

[Jana Lewis]

Not an MD.
He will refract you only if you buy glasses from him. 25$
And you cannot take your Rx. It stays w him.

I believe if you DO want to take your Rx he faxes it to an MD's office and u have to pick it up there.

Just wasnt sure if this was the "loop hole" or flat out illegal.

I believe that is illegal and I would report him to the board. We as professional opticians cannot have someone kicking our integrity down the drain.

[optical24/7]

As I stated earlier, I'm not a fan of this optician, but my opinion is personality based, not professionally based. I've known this guy for over 30 years and he was an account of mine when I was in wholesale, with that said....

It's not illegal for him to perform a refraction, with an MD writing it off, anymore than it's not illegal for any other MD to write offf on their own staff performing a refraction. ( at least in TX.)

I also don't see how he is "kicking our integrity". There are many here at the state level that have been working hard to enable qualified, and well trained opticians to preform simple refractions.

We opticians are chained to OD's and OMD's for our livlihood. You would think we could applaud a fellow optician for raising the bar for all of us.



And now, we shall hear how terrible this is from our resident OD/OMD's. :bbg:

[HarryChiling]

Im in Houston, Tx and there is a person who owns an Optical and has a "refracting" lane. he charges 25bucks for the rx and you have to get your glasses there and cannot take the rx elsewhere. surely this is still illegal right? can he be reported? apparently hes been doing it for years!! Who and where would you report this to??

I wouldn't report it personally.

[rbaker]

Not an MD.
He will refract you only if you buy glasses from him. 25$
And you cannot take your Rx. It stays w him.

I believe if you DO want to take your Rx he faxes it to an MD's office and u have to pick it up there.

Just wasnt sure if this was the "loop hole" or flat out illegal.

It is not illegal until a court says so. Your state/national boards of registration may only issue complaints which are resolved in the courts. The true situation here is probably found in a multitude of loopholes in a multitude of jurisdictions.

Has any patient, customer, client or mark suffered any loss or been harmed by this behavior? I mean actual harm and not innuendo. I think that the courts are leaning toward liberalizing business laws and regulations and as Bob Dylan did say "The times they are a changin."

[gemstone]

Im in Houston, Tx and there is a person who owns an Optical and has a "refracting" lane. he charges 25bucks for the rx and you have to get your glasses there and cannot take the rx elsewhere. surely this is still illegal right? can he be reported? apparently hes been doing it for years!! Who and where would you report this to??

I don't know how much they pay this MD. It seems to me that this MD is very foolishly hanging out a butt to be kicked very hard. I hope they have good MP insurance.

[tmorse]

We opticians are chained to OD's and OMD's for our livlihood. You would think we could applaud a fellow optician for raising the bar for all of us.

Hear hear!!

[HarryChiling]

Hear hear!!

We opticians are chained to OD's and OMD's for our livlihood. You would think we could applaud a fellow optician for raising the bar for all of us.

:cheers:

I don't know how much they pay this MD. It seems to me that this MD is very foolishly hanging out a butt to be kicked very hard. I hope they have good MP insurance.

Just a thought, how good must this optician be to have an OMD risking his butt for him? Can anyone else here claim to be that good?

[OHPNTZ]

How do you know he's good? I pity the poor hyperope or latent hyperope, or binocular vision patient who sees him...

He should be reported.

[chip anderson]

It ain't no damn loophole and it doesn't exempt MD's either. The law is very plain all prescribers (defined as optometrist and ophthalmologist in the law) must give everyone a copy of thier Rx at the time of examination and allow them to take it to the optician of thier choice.

Chip

[HarryChiling]

How do you know he's good? I pity the poor hyperope or latent hyperope, or binocular vision patient who sees him...

He should be reported.

I don't but how do you know he's bad? You could pity his patients all you want but if the guy has been practiceing for 30 years as someone has mentioned his patients don't pity him.

You know the FCLCA or whatever, professionals from all sides sent in complaints about how the online vendors could be doing harm and that they should not be allowed to dispense contacts online, then the FTC actually had in a response of all the complaints NO ONE gave the FTC a solution or alternative to the system that sucks and is in place now.

Complain all you want but it would be more prudent to come up with a solution or risk sounding like the crowd.

[HarryChiling]

Maybe a similar situation concerning OD's would help put this into perspective:

-Deleted doctors advocateing prescribing beyond scope of practice-

And it goes on like this for a total of 16 posts, most OD's seem to think it is OK for their peers to practice beyond their scope, but when an optician practices beyond ours they are advocateing to lynch this guy.

[orangezero]

These aren't the same issues.

One case involves profiting from potentially illegal activities and the other involves keeping medications on hand which are pretty much only used in emergency situations (which could lead to permanent vision loss). Many states have very specific exemptions listed in their optometry act just for these types of medications.

When did you become an OD anyway? :)

[braheem24]

I very much respect Opometrists' abilities, but refracting is a joke that does not require 6 years of schooling to learn.

The Illegal activity in question is handing an rx to a patient while the other can cause permanent vision loss, I think Harry summed it up nicely :cheers:






PS, It's practiced in Canada without any vision loss to date :p

[Diane]

Maybe a similar situation concerning OD's would help put this into perspective:

And it goes on like this for a total of 16 posts, most OD's seem to think it is OK for their peers to practice beyond their scope, but when an optician practices beyond ours they are advocateing to lynch this guy.

The original post states that it is a COT, it doesn't mention optician.

Diane

[jediron1]

The original post states that it is a COT, it doesn't mention optician.

Diane

Part of what a COT is trained to do is to do refractions but an OD or MD must be able to sign off. Chip is also right you can't get around Eyeglass 1 by saying if you buy your glasses from me the exam will be $25 it's illegal. Now if you hand them the Rx and say we have an optical shop that has great prices you might try them out then their is nothing wrong but you must give them a choice. Chips right!

[HarryChiling]

It's wrong he's holding the script.

[Oedema]

Maybe a similar situation concerning OD's would help put this into perspective:

And it goes on like this for a total of 16 posts, most OD's seem to think it is OK for their peers to practice beyond their scope, but when an optician practices beyond ours they are advocateing to lynch this guy.

Harry, do you realize that you are in violation of the odwire terms of agreement?

[Oedema]

PS, It's practiced in Canada without any vision loss to date :p

http://www.optometrists.bc.ca/webupl...studies_04.pdf