There are threats to Safe eye Care that you need to know about…
Shortcuts can be a good thing.
But rarely when it comes to health care.
And never when it comes to surgery.
State legislatures are responsible for the laws regulating professional licensure including the practice of Medicine and Optometry. Year after year, in states across the country optometry special interest groups and their lobbyists work on influencing state legislators to expand the scope of practice of optometrists to include eye surgery using scalpels and lasers, without the necessary education and training. Optometrists are important members of the eye care team, but they are not medical doctors and have not gone to medical school. They have not completed medical internships. And they have not completed residency training in eye surgery. Bills have been introduced, allowing optometrists to perform delicate surgery on patient’s eyes without the necessary education and training. This is a very serious threat to patient safety. Fortunately, terrible threats to patient safety have been rejected in multiple states across the country year after year but they continually return at the behest of organized optometry. Frighteningly, such bills have passed recently in Washington, South Dakota, New Mexico, Montana and West Virginia!
Patients in red and yellow states must know their eye doctor’s credentials! No matter where you live, ensure that any eye procedure is performed only by a qualified ophthalmologist. They are the eye doctors with the proper education and surgical training needed for your safety.
Only ophthalmologists, who have completed medical school, internships and ophthalmic surgery residencies are qualified to perform eye surgery. Patients are not asking to have surgery performed by anyone with less education and training. Special interest organizations representing optometrists are the only ones asking legislators for these changes to the law. Unfortunately, the laws in some states have been weakened with safety restrictions on who is allowed to perform eye surgery changed to no longer allow only physicians to perform surgery! Safe Eyes America is educating patients on the need to contact their legislators to tell them that they don’t need or want these changes to the law.
Protecting Florida Patients from Unsafe Eye Surgery Legislation
Florida patients deserve the safe eye surgery.
For years, legislation has repeatedly threatened that standard by seeking to allow non-medical practitioners to perform laser and scalpel eye surgeries. While bill numbers change each session, the risk to patient safety remains the same.
2025: Dangerous Bill Defeated
In the 2025 Florida legislative session, House Bill 449 proposed expanding surgical privileges to optometrists who have not completed medical school or ophthalmology residency training.
Thanks to strong advocacy from physicians, patients, and concerned citizens, HB 449 was defeated in the Florida Senate Rules Committee, preserving safe standards for eye surgery.
Training and Qualifications Matter
Optometrists provide important primary vision care, but they are not medical doctors. They do not complete the years of surgical education and hospital-based training required of ophthalmologists. Granting surgical authority without that foundation puts patients at unnecessary risk.
Know Your Eye Doctor
Patients must know who their eye doctor is and what their qualifications are.
Understanding whether a provider is an ophthalmologist (a medical doctor and surgeon) or an optometrist (a doctor of optometry) is essential to making informed decisions about eye health and surgical care.
Stay Informed and Engaged
As new legislative sessions approach, continued vigilance is vital.
Safe Eyes America remains committed to protecting patients, preserving surgical standards, and ensuring transparency in eye care across Florida.
A Patient Protecting Other Patients!
The New Hampshire legislature was considering SB440, a very dangerous change to the law that would allow optometrists to perform laser eye surgery, as well as a host of other vision and even life threatening surgical procedures...
Vicki, a patient from Oklahoma who has experienced the dangers of laser surgery performed by an optometrist told her story to Safe Eyes America and in testimony before a NH House committee.
SB440 did not pass, but a house version, HB349 remains active and will be under consideration in January 2026! Vicki remains ready to tell the legislators of NH of the dangers under consideration!
Following Vicki’s brave and heroic efforts in NH, we are proud to announce her joining Safe Eyes America as a member of our Board of Directors!
Know who your eye care provider is and what their qualifications are! Insist that your eye surgery is only performed by an ophthalmologist with the necessary education, training and experience!
A serious threat in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
Patient safety across the country is currently being threatened by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and its VA Federal Supremacy Project. The Project aims to create national standards of practice for allied health professions within the VA regardless of state licensure, certification, and other restrictions (which currently define scope of practice). Patients should not have standards for education, training, and safety taken lightly and diluted! Standards for care are not a matter of convenience; they should ensure veterans have access to the highest quality care. The VHA is considering reducing these standards of care now! The nation’s veterans deserve the same quality medical care as everyone else, and changes made in the VA would lead to similar changes being adopted for everyone. The standards for eye care by optometrists and ophthalmic technicians are being reevaluated as part of this Project, but it goes much further to include care delivered by physician assistants, nurse practitioners, nurse anesthetists and many other allied health professionals. All of these potential changes pose a very serious threat to patient safety!
Standards for practice applied at a national level across the VA system should align with the strictest state scope of practice laws for physicians and non-physician practitioners! Eye surgery (including all laser surgery), should only be performed by educated and trained ophthalmologists (physicians), not optometrists (non-physicians). The nation’s veterans and the nation’s patients deserve no less. Reach out to your US Representative and Senator and tell them, “I care about health care and the VA Federal Supremacy Project must not compromise patient safety with any reduction of patient safety standards”. Veterans, everyone really, need to know the real qualifications of the people providing their healthcare!
Attention residents of Washington state!
A bill that would drastically lower the safety requirements for licensing to perform eye surgery has just been passed in Washington!
Substitute Senate Bill 5389 has unfortunately been passed through the Washington legislature and signed by Governor Inslee. This allows non-surgeons (optometrists, who have not attended medical school) to perform a host of delicate and surgical procedures on patient’s eyes which could have vision or life threatening implications…
Special interests and their lobbyists in Olympia told the legislature that optometrists are able to simply treat “lumps and bumps” of the eyelids with injections and simple procedures, but that is far from the truth of the matter. Small, innocuous looking lesions on the eyelids are not uncommonly cancers masquerading as common styes and chalazions. The bill specifically does not allow optometrists to perform surgery on malignancies, but if they are mistaken and inject, needle, or simply cut away only part of what is really a cancer, it’s simply too late for the patient! Patients need to know and trust that their potential surgeon really has the years of education and training to identify, diagnose and perform whatever surgery is necessary to SAFELY treat them. When it comes to any eye surgery, that’s an ophthalmologist and their 4 years of medical school, one year of internship, and 3 years of ophthalmology residency, not an optometrist and their 4 years of optometry school and a “course” in surgery measured in hours of duration.
Sebaceous Cell Carcinoma – Fatal if treatment is delayed by unsafe incision or injection, ALLOWED by Senate 5389!
Washington Citizens now more than ever need to know the qualifications of their “eye doctor”.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has vetoed AB 2236
The bill would have allowed optometrists to perform eye surgery on patients in California following specified education and training. Explaining his decision, Governor Newsom said, “I am not convinced that the education and training required is sufficient to prepare optometrists to perform the surgical procedures identified.” AB 2236 had passed in the CA Assembly and by a very narrow margin at the 11th hour in the Senate. The bill, introduced by Assemblyperson Evan Low, whose father is an optometrist, would allow optometrists who have years less than the current standards for training to perform injections, laser and scalpel surgery on your eyes! Only ophthalmologists, who have had the education and training necessary for patient safety should be performing surgery on your eyes!
Optometry school and any sort of classes for practicing optometrists (typically weekend courses!) simply aren’t a safe substitute! The need to know the qualifications of your surgeon takes on a whole new level of importance when dangerous bills like AB 2236 are passed into law. Thank you to all of the Safe Eyes America followers who contacted Governor Newsom asking that he veto the bill!
Eye patients in Colorado (really everywhere) need to be careful!
Basal cell carcinoma present for 6 months
After surgery to remove all of the cancer affected area
After reconstruction by ophthalmologist specializing in oculoplastics
Colorado has enacted dangerous legislation that allows inadequately trained optometrists, who have not attended medical school, completed hospital internships, or surgical residency training, to perform laser and scalpel surgery on patients. Who wants an eye surgeon who hasn’t completed medical school and years of surgical training to operate on their eyes? Patients in Colorado (really everywhere) need to know the qualifications of their “surgeon.”
Optometry school and any sort of classes for practicing optometrists (typically weekend courses!) simply aren’t a safe substitute! Patients need to know Who is Taking Care of Your Eyes.
Laser Surgery Without Safe Training?
Bad Idea!
YAG Laser Eye Surgery
Fractions of a millimeter could make a difference between success and a complication
Do you live in Vermont or Utah?
If you do you better know who is taking care of your eyes and what their qualifications are. Dangerous changes to the law are being considered there right now that would allow optometrists, who have NOT gone to medical school and have not completed adequate surgical residency training to perform surgery on YOUR eyes! And this could be WITHOUT EVER actually performing the procedure under supervision on a real patient - YOU or a loved one could be their first!
When these laws are passed, certification standards are put in place by the state optometry boards which are frankly just dangerous. Optometry school and certification courses (typically 32 hours over a weekend, no real patients or experience!) are NOT a substitute for medical school and the 4 years of internship and residency training of an ophthalmologist.
Ask and make sure you know who is taking care of your eyes. Make sure that any surgery or “procedure” that you have on YOUR EYES is performed only by an ophthalmologist. Contact your state legislators to let them know that patients should not have eye surgery performed by optometrists who are not medical doctors! It only takes a minute to leave a message or send an email and it could protect you, your family, your friends, and other patients in your state.
****Update! Vermont’s legislature has considered this legislation several times and it has been rejected repeatedly, but it is expected to return. Safe Eyes America will keep you informed!
I’m Charlotte and my eyes were hurt…
Dangerous Laser Surgery Threat in Virginia
Safe Eyes America educational advertising for Virginia.
The Virginia General Assembly has passed dangerous legislation that allows non-surgeons, providers who have never been to medical school, to perform laser surgery on your eyes.
A poll of the citizens of Virginia revealed that 80% of Virginians only want an ophthalmologist to perform their eye surgery - But in spite of being told this the legislature passed the dangerous law that allows optometrists to perform laser surgery! Patients need to know that only ophthalmologists have the education and training to safely be performing eye surgery!
Help us spread the word to let other patients know that the safety of their eyes is under threat!
Safe Eyes America Message for Florida Patients!
The bill numbers change but the threats to patients eyes keep coming back! Legislators and Patients heard our message in Florida and the 2021 legislative session ended with the dangerous bills dying in committee! The special interests and their lobbyists didn’t give up though and the bill, essentially unchanged, returned in 2025 only to be defeated again! It is expected to be introduced again in 2026.
If you live in a threatened state - Contact your legislators now! Tell them that optometrists should not be performing surgery in your state.
Help us spread the word to let other patients know that the safety of their eyes is under threat!
