Sen. Rebecca White backs S.64 to let specially credentialed optometrists perform defined minor eye surgeries, lasers and injections

Sen. Rebecca White (Windsor County) and officials from the Office of Professional Regulation told a legislative committee that S.64 would create an "advanced therapeutic procedure specialty" enabling some Vermont optometrists to perform a limited set of minor ophthalmic surgeries, laser procedures and injections after meeting new training and competency requirements.

"This is an act relating to amendments to the scope of practice for optometrists," Dijon Harvey, legislative counsel, said as he read the bill caption and summary for the committee. The bill would add "therapeutic pharmaceutical agents" to optometrists' authorized practice for diagnosis, management and treatment of the eye and adnexa, and establish an explicit list of procedures that specialty holders may perform and a separate list of procedures that remain prohibited.

Jennifer Kahl, director of the Office of Professional Regulation (OPR), said OPR reviewed experience in other states and has concluded that, with the bill's training and oversight, the specified expansion is appropriate. "We feel comfortable with the scope expansion," Kahl told the committee, citing OPR sunrise reviews in 2019 and 2023 and the availability of competency assessments and reporting requirements in S.64.

Under the bill, an optometrist who holds the specialty must meet multiple requirements: a post‑2019 optometry graduate may already have the curriculum incorporated…