New federal legislation, supported by the American Optometric Association (AOA) and the Health Care Alliance for Patient Safety (HCAPS), is calling for a ban on online retailers’ use of automated robocalls to verify contact lens prescription.
I need some background info first.
Contact lenses are regulated under the FDA as Class II and Class III medical devices requiring an optometrist’s prescription and professional oversight.
However, online lens retailers may allow consumers to purchase such lenses with expired prescriptions or different brands / types of lenses than initially prescribed by an eye doctor.
What else?
Per the AOA, such retailers may use robocalls to use the “passage verification” provision set by the Contact Lens Rule and under the Fairness to Contact Lens Consumer Act (FCLCA)—where doctors have an 8-hour turnaround time to respond before a prescription is verified automatically—to their advantage.
Now give me a rundown on this legislation.
Introduced into the U.S. House on April 20, 2023, H.R. 2748 Contact Lens Prescription Modernization Act proposes revising the requirements for prescription verification of contact lens purchases.
Specifically, “online sellers of prescription contact lenses must provide consumers with a method to transmit a digital copy of their prescriptions to such sellers,” the bill states.
Further, the bill proposes that online sellers must also encrypt patients’ protected health information that is sent by email, as well as prohibits any prescription contact lens seller from using robocalls to verify a patient’s prescription.
Is this the first time the bill’s been introduced?
It’s actually not. Back in October 2020, the legislation (then called The Contact Lens Rule Modernization Act (S. 4613) earned bipartisan support and was noted as the AOA’s “largest advocacy campaign in recent history.”
However, it did not gain enough momentum to pass in the House or Senate.
So what’s the purpose of the bill?
According to the AOA, the bill would address the following:
- Patient safety concerns over online retailers’ use of automated robocalls and manipulation of verification requirements
- Require retailers to use direct communication (email, live phone calls, fax) to confirm prescription accuracy
- Require retailers to offer a HIPAA-complaint method to allow patients to upload an electronic copy of their prescription.
What are Congress members saying?
U.S. Representatives Michael Burgess, MD (R-Texas) and Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del), who introduced the bill in both the 116th and 117th sessions of Congress, released a joint statement:
"The [bill] prohibits robocalls for contact lens prescription verifications and extends HIPAA protections to correspondence between a patient and an online seller,” stated Burgess. “This bill will maintain consumers’ freedom while ensuring that physicians can safely verify their patients’ prescriptions.”
And the AOA?
The AOA is encouraging support for the bill from the eyecare community to “close loopholes in the verification system and restore common sense health and safety consideration.”
The organization plans to hold an “AOA on Capitol Hill” advocacy event during the 2023 annual Optometry’s Meeting (June 21-24, 2023) in Washington, D.C.
*Disclaimer: The information provided in this article does not and is not intended to constitute legal advice; instead, all information, content, materials available herein are for general information purposes only.