Retailers see red in contact lens bill

A group of retailers including Lens.com, 1-800 Contacts and wholesaler Costco joined forces last week to form the Coalition for Contact Lens Consumer Choice to fight a Senate bill they say harms competition.

The legislation from Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., delves into a long-running battle between optometrists and retailers of contact lenses over 30 million consumers’ ability to choose where they get their contacts, with retailers competing with doctors’ offices that sell lenses.

The latest fight is over a verification process that retailers have to use when a patient places an order. The prescription for the order needs to be verified by the doctor per a 2003 federal law.

Proponents of the bill, which are optometrist groups and patient advocacy groups, say the measure is aimed at boosting that process and targeting companies that use loopholes that allow them to avoid verification and sometimes ship the wrong contact lens. They say the bill would ensure that the patient gets the prescription exactly as it is described.

Opponents, which are mainly retailers, say the bill would give doctors the ability to delay verifying prescription requests from sellers and hurt their business.

Cassidy is willing to speak with the retailers opposing the bill to clear up any issues or misinterpretation they may have, a Senate aide told the Washington Examiner.

Contact lens retailers and optometrists have fought each other on Capitol Hill for years, but the creation of a coalition is a new move for the retailers. The coalition will focus mainly on lobbying lawmakers.

The move comes more than a week after Cassidy introduced the Contact Lens Consumer Health Protection Act. The coalition believes the legislation would make it harder for customers to use their services, which often offer contact lenses much cheaper than at the doctor’s office.

Currently, if the patient uses a service such as Lens.com or 1-800 Contacts, the retailer must verify the prescription with the doctor.

“The doctor has up to eight hours in order to respond,” said Richard Chavez, senior vice president for business development for Costco.

If the doctor doesn’t respond within eight hours, the seller doesn’t have to wait anymore and can ship the lenses to the customer, Chavez said.

However, the American Optometric Association said in a letter supporting the bill that the current process is often unworkable, with doctors unable to work with retailers if there is a problem.

“The [2003] law’s contemplated simple responses do not properly cover the wide range of patient health details that can come into play and that the prescriber may need to convey to the seller,” according to a letter from the group supporting the bill.

So Cassidy’s bill would enable the prescriber to ask a question about the prescription the seller is asking him to verify. However, the bill also requires that if the doctor raises any question, he has to immediately provide a verified prescription to the seller.

Chavez said the legislation could allow a doctor to raise a question and then extend the eight-hour period.

The bill could “stifle competition in the contact lens marketplace by stopping the verification process until the optometrists communicate directly with the retailer,” according to a statement from 1-800 Contacts. “We have seen that optometrists will often refuse to communicate with the retailer because they want to capture the sale for themselves.”

Optometrists, meanwhile, call the bill a necessary foil to deceptive Internet sales tactics that deceive the public.

The bill would ban automated robocalls “into doctors’ offices as the mechanism for verifying patient prescription information, and allowing doctors to choose live phone calls or emails from sellers instead,” according to the American Optometric Association, which backs the bill.

It also would ensure that more updated technology is used in the verification, with some sellers using outdated fax machines, said the advocay group Coalition for Patient Vision Care Safety, in a letter of support.

Supporters note that the bill would ensure patients get the correct prescriptions, as some consumers have reported getting a different brand than the one prescribed by their doctor, the coalition said.

Contact lens companies, however, point to a recent letter from Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., to the FTC over lens competition.

“The rights of contact lens consumers are being repeatedly and openly violated by prescribers who refuse to comply with the FTC’s Contact Lens Rule, which requires doctors to give patients a copy of their prescription so that patients can choose for themselves where they purchase their contact lenses,” Lee said.

The fight over the Cassidy legislation is the latest in a years-long war between the retailers and doctors’ offices.

Congress last stepped in with a 2003 law called the Fairness to Contact Lens Consumers Act that increased power for consumers to choose where they buy their lenses.

After that law, there were several legal battles “because manufacturers of contact lenses would sell to independent doctors and wouldn’t sell to retailers and discount clubs,” said John Sullivan, vice president and associate general counsel for Costco.

Chavez and Sullivan wouldn’t say how much Costco would lose if the bill becomes law. Sullivan said that contact lens sales have been flat due to competition from doctors.

Contact lens sales are a small part of the wholesale club’s overall business, but he said the retailer wants to ensure that its customers can have the choice to buy lenses from them.