Senate Bill No. 615
(By Senator Bailey)
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[Introduced February 7, 2008; referred to the Committee on Health
and Human Resources.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact §30-8-2 of the Code of West Virginia,
1931, as amended, relating to allowing optometrists to
prescribe vision correction devices which dispense drugs which
have the intended purpose of vision correction.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That §30-8-2 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended,
be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 8. OPTOMETRISTS.
§30-8-2. Practice of optometry defined.
Any one or any combination of the following practices shall
constitute the practice of optometry:
(a) The examination of the human eye, with or without the use
of drugs, prescribable for the human eye which drugs may be used
for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes, for topical application to
the anterior segment of the human eye and, by any method other than surgery, to diagnose, treat or refer for consultation or treatment
any abnormal condition of the human eye or its appendages;
(b) The employment without the use of surgery of any
instrument, device, method or diagnostic or therapeutic drug
intended for the purpose of investigating, examining, treating,
diagnosing, improving or correcting any visual defect or abnormal
condition of the human eye or its appendages;
(c) The prescribing, fitting, application, replacement,
duplication or alteration of lenses, prisms, contact lenses,
orthoptics, vision training, vision rehabilitation, diagnostic or
therapeutic drugs, or the furnishing or providing of any prosthetic
device, or any other method other than surgery necessary to correct
or relieve any defects or abnormal conditions of the human eye or
its appendages.
(d) In prescribing and dispensing vision correction devices
under a therapeutic pharmaceutical agents certificate, a licensed
optometrist may prescribe and dispense any device that has vision
correction as its intended purpose but also combines with that
purpose the delivery of a drug or dangerous drug through the
device, if the drug delivered by the device would otherwise be a
topical ocular pharmaceutical agent or oral therapeutic
pharmaceutical agent. Devices authorized by this section include,
but are not limited to, vision-correcting contact lenses that
deliver drugs or dangerous drugs.
(d) (e) Nothing in this section shall be construed to permit
an optometrist to perform surgery, use drugs by injection or to use
or prescribe any drug for
purposes other than the specific purposes
authorized by this article.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to allow optometrists to
prescribe vision correction devices which dispense drugs or
dangerous drugs.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from
the present law, and underscoring indicates new language that would
be added.
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