AUSTIN, Texas—The Texas legislature has approved a bill that prohibits managed vision care companies from requiring providers of optometric care to use an optical laboratory the vision plan owns. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has until June 21, 2015, to either sign or veto House Bill 3550/Senate Bill 684, and those who are following this bill expect him to sign it. Once enacted, the law would go into effect on Sept. 1, 2015, and it would apply to contracts entered into or renewed on or after that date.

Specifically, the law prohibits managed care plans from restricting or limiting an optometrist’s choice of sources or suppliers of services or materials, including optical laboratories used by the optometrist to provide services or materials to patients.

In addition, the law also prohibits managed care plans from controlling the professional judgment, manner of practice, or practice of an optometrist or therapeutic optometrist; paying an optometrist for a service not provided; or requiring an optometrist to disclose a patient’s confidential or protected health information unless the disclosure is authorized by the patient or permitted without authorization under HIPAA.

The law also requires optometrists to disclose to a patient any business interest the optometrist has in an out-of-network supplier or manufacturer to which the optometrist refers the patient.

The impetus for the legislation, according to analysis of the bill in the Texas House Committee report, was based on the fact that interested parties assert that some vision plan companies “require optometrists to disclose confidential medical diagnoses of their patients in order for the optometrist to remain in compliance with plan rules” and “the parties report that some vision plan companies also require optometrists to use an optical laboratory the vision plan owns, even when the optometrist knows that a different lab can produce glasses for a patient more quickly, at a lower price, and with better craftsmanship and quality control.”

A similar law passed in Georgia in 2010 was upheld by the Georgia Supreme Court in December 2013.