(a)  Any contract providing for healthcare benefits that calls for the expenditure of private or public funds, for any purpose involving eye care that is within the scope of the practice of optometry, shall provide the recipients and/or beneficiaries the freedom to choose within the participating provider panel either an optometrist or physician to provide the eye care. This provision shall be applicable whether or not the contract is executed and/or delivered in or outside of the state, or for use within or outside of the state by or for any individuals who reside or are employed in the state.

Terms Used In Rhode Island General Laws 5-35.1-11

  • Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
  • Optometrist: means a person licensed in this state to practice optometry pursuant to the provisions of this chapter. See Rhode Island General Laws 5-35.1-1
  • Optometry: means the profession whose practitioners are engaged in the art and science of the evaluation of vision and the examination of vision and the examination and refraction of the human eye that includes: the employment of any objective or subjective means for the examination of the human eye or its appendages; the measurement of the powers or range of human vision or the determination of the accommodative and refractive powers of the human eye or the scope of its functions in general and the adaptation of lenses, prisms, and/or frames for the aid of these; the prescribing, directing the use of, or administering ocular exercises, visual training, vision training, or orthoptics, and the use of any optical device in connection with these; the prescribing of contact lenses for, or the fitting or adaptation of contact lenses to, the human eye; the examination or diagnosis of the human eye to ascertain the presence of abnormal conditions or functions; and the application of pharmaceutical agents to the eye, provided, that no optometrist licensed in this state shall perform any surgery for the purpose of detecting any diseased or pathological condition of the eye. See Rhode Island General Laws 5-35.1-1

(b)  Where the contracts call for the expenditure of public or private funds, for any purpose involving expenditure of public or private funds, for any purpose involving eye care, there shall be no discrimination as to the rate of reimbursement for the health care, whether provided by a doctor of optometry or physician providing similar services.

History of Section.
P.L. 2008, ch. 305, § 2; P.L. 2008, ch. 433, § 2.