Missouri considering expanding optometrist procedures
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Optometrists in Missouri are asking lawmakers to expand what procedures they can perform for patients in the state.
Right now, the doctors usually consulted for eye glass prescriptions, antibiotics, cataracts, and glaucoma are limited in what they can do beyond those cases.
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“What we can’t do in Missouri is certain laser procedures, specifically ones that help patients see better after cataracts surgery or also laser surgeries to help patients that have glaucoma where their eye drops may not be working,” said Warrensburg Optometrist Dr. Mark Curtis.
Specifically, Curtis says the Missouri Optometric Association is looking to be able to use lasers to clear film from cataracts implants, glaucoma laser treatment, and injecting treatments for sties and bumps around the eyes.
He said none of those treatments involve penetrating the eye and are already well within their current training.
“Optometrists go through four years of just eye training and so we’re already used to using a lot of the instruments, the microscopes, the techniques,” Curtis said. “It’s really nothing new. It’s just adding another little layer to the treatments that we’d be able to do with patients.”
Patients currently have to seek out specialists to do those procedures which can subject them to long wait times and traveling long distances, especially if they live in rural parts of Missouri.
Lawmakers must renew tax to fund Missouri’s Medicaid program this session
“I’m in a fairly rural area but we have parts of Missouri that are very rural where access to specialists for some of these minor surgical procedures can take six, seven, eight weeks on average where an optometrist in one of these rural areas could probably take care of it that day or at least within a week,” Curtis said.
Eleven other states already allow optometrists to do these kinds of procedures.
“As an optometrist, I can already give you a COVID vaccine in your arm, but I’m not allowed to give you an injection into your eyelid and yet that’s my specialty,” Curtis said.
You can track both the Missouri House and Senate versions of the bills here and here.
