FAST FACTS
- More than 40% of Wyoming households have at least one person who has had surgery in or around the eye.
- 82% of Wyoming voters say that access to eye care is readily available to them and their family.
- 78% of Wyoming voters oppose changing Wyoming law to allow optometrists to perform eye surgeries after hearing basic facts on the issue.
- As Wyoming legislators consider a proposal to allow optometrists to perform some surgery procedures in and around the eyes of patients, 60% of Wyoming voters think training surgery experience of optometrists is the most important thing to consider.
*Data according to a survey of 500 likely Wyoming conducted in December of 2019.*
IMPLICATIONS OF HOUSE BILL 39
- Allow optometrists open-ended authority to perform more than 100 different types of surgeries on and around the eye;
- Remove the authority of the Wyoming Board of Medicine to solely determine the necessary requirements and oversight for those performing eye surgery in Wyoming;
- Permit optometrists to take a needle and inject potent pharmaceutical agents into the tissues surrounding the eye;
- Double the likelihood a patient would need additional treatment when certain procedures are performed by an optometrist as compared to an ophthalmologist – resulting in higher costs to patients and the healthcare system;
- Go against the will of Wyoming people – with 78% of Wyoming voters opposing a change in law to allow optometrists to perform eye surgeries when educated on the issue
Optometrists are an important part of the eyecare team, but they are not surgeons or medical doctors who have a minimum of eight years of post-college medical and surgical training. And 89% of Wyoming residents say that access to the eye care they need is already readily available. So why put patients at risk?
