VSP Discontinues Integrated Primary EyeCare Program

"Concerted third party and state advocacy efforts ensure Kentucky's optometrists have direct access to health plan members needing medical eye care via a business model that could be a bellwether for other states,"
 goes an American Optometric Assn. press release. "At the behest of a new state law—backed by the Kentucky Optometric Association (KOA) and AOA—VSP Vision Care announced on July 15 that their business model in Kentucky would change to allow doctors the opportunity to participate directly with the Cigna medical network sans participation with a vision care plan, and the state's VSP Integrated Primary EyeCare Program (IPEC) would be discontinued, effective Sept. 15, 2015. This change in posture comes after months of third party advocacy and legislative efforts by the KOA and AOA to roll back these tying arrangements between health and vision care plans for credentialing and contracting optometrists." Read more.