From home pregnancy tests to telehealth options, technology has expanded healthcare access by lowering costs, eliminating travel hassles, and reducing wait times. Online vision screening programs, particularly from Visibly, are revolutionizing eye care this way. Unfortunately, this new innovation only helps patients in states where brick-and-mortar eyecare lobbyists have not managed to use the “patient safety” rationale to get it legally banned.
At best, this reasoning shows arrogance and overbearance on the part of both doctors and lawmakers. Autonomous adults know their individual circumstances like nobody else can. They also have every right to make healthcare decisions other people might not make for themselves.
Almost a fourth of the adult population never visits an eye doctor, and they will not be compelled to do so by even more cumbersome laws.
At worst, this rationale demonstrates medical lobbyists have again managed to legislate away their rivals. And the particularly innocuous nature of this online vision exam makes this latter explanation seem far more likely.
What The Exam Really Is (And Is Not)
Some versions of these tests have existed since 2014, and Visibly recently became the first company to receive approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for their online eye exam. It has therefore met the supposed gold standard for medical approval. It is not new or untested technology.
It measures only visual acuity and makes no claim of doing more. The site emphasizes that tests for actual eye diseases, such as glaucoma, require an in-person exam. And measuring the ability to read a chart is not a mysterious and complex art. Clerks at the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) give vision exams, yet the government has not expressed any concern it is endangering eye health.
The results from the test are sent to a licensed eye doctor. The patients are not diagnosing themselves and prescribing themselves glasses. (Of course, people have successfully been doing that at the gas station with reading glasses for years, and mass blindness has not occurred.) Patients already use emails or telehealth visits to contact doctors about minor ongoing issues, including eye problems, followed by the doctor prescribing treatment adjustments.
Visibly is intended for healthy patients between the ages of 22 and 40 who have already received vision care in person. Eye health and vision tend to remain stable for this population, and even the American Optometric Association (AOA) only recommends an exam every two years for them. This is particularly noteworthy because some states require a yearly test to get a prescription. Visibly makes clear it is a tool for low-risk individuals to use between comprehensive eye exams, not as a substitute for them.
What The Laws Really Are
Many healthcare regulations appear to be examples of protectionism, but the laws against the Visibly exam are exceptionally difficult to explain any other way. The laws do not make eye care less expensive or time-consuming for patients. They do not make routine doctor visits more likely to happen. And nothing in their attempted justification shows this new remote option to be even slightly unsafe.
These laws are merely the means for yet another special-interest group to eliminate competition. This is not a new method of lobbyists protecting their business, but it is certainly one of the most obvious ones.