Advocacy News

Your support helps OPHTHPAC work for physician-friendly candidates to replace them.

Military veterans’ eye care, physician payment reform, reducing practice burdens, ensuring patients’ timely access to needed treatments, and increasing member engagement will drive the Academy’s 2024 advocacy efforts on behalf of ophthalmology patients and practices.

Hundreds of your colleagues have already told legislators to include payment relief in any bill that addresses the Jan. 19 government funding deadline. Add your voice and help protect patient access to care.

Committee action in the House and Senate this week focused on Medicare, with hearings on Academy priorities to improve patient access to care, including policies to reform prior authorization and update the Medicare physician payment system.

As policymakers look to drive new payment models, the Academy outlined how we believe the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services can make new payment models accessible to medical specialties like ophthalmology.

We are working with Congress to fix Medicare’s broken payment system, highlighting the need to fix a physician payment program that fails to account for inflation and increasing practice costs.

Cigna’s action means that providers will not have to submit medical records to comply with the insurer’s now-delayed policy.

The latest meeting to challenge payment of global period post-operative visits stressed the complexity of medical decision-making.

After sharing how this burdensome new policy will harm practices and patients, the insurer agreed to delay the requirement’s effective start date.

This unusual move by MedPAC, which advises Congress, signals growing awareness of the need for Medicare payment reform.