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NYSSO President Dale S. Clemens and Executive Director Laura Frezza met in downtown Albany in July with Thania Fernandez, executive secretary of Ophthalmic Dispensing at the New York State Education Department Office of the Professions, to discuss unlicensed practice, as well as consumer safety and awareness.
The meeting is summarized in this follow-up letter from Laura to Ms. Fernandez, outlining the need to revisit the current guidelines, as well as enforcing that reporting unlicensed practice is complaint-driven.
Dear Executive Secretary Fernandez,
Thank you for arranging time to speak with Dale Clemens and I on behalf of NYS Opticians.
We appreciate your explanation of the department’s oversight. Our subsequent discussion around unlicensed practice clearly sums up the state of opticianry in New York; moreover how frustrating for those that want to uphold the rules and NYS laws.
Your suggestion for NYSSO to pursue other avenues that might benefit and protect consumers are taken with the knowledge that this may prove to be a legislative issue and not under the purview of your department. Thank you for that clarification. Your comments around investigating complaints and how such complaints are handled within the department will be shared with our members and within our media channels.
Knowing and confirming that investigations are complaint driven needs to be circulated among our members. Without reporting there are no other options to stop the proliferation of unlicensed practice.
Beyond reporting we will need to pursue a campaign to mandate dispensaries register their staff and make owners accountable for all employees filling eyeglass and contact lens prescriptions for NYS consumers. This will ensure that licensed opticians are the only persons directly caring for these patients/consumers.
As mentioned, there is a movement for the state to monitor out of state licensed service personnel to establish the ability to practice within New York. Perhaps this may provide insight into new measures developed for this registration process. We are hopeful this might carry over into professions, like ours, that need better monitoring of apprentices and their sponsors, much like new registration of service personnel and their whereabouts.
NYSSO will be at the ready to learn how the state plans to handle these action items and whether there are future opportunities to dovetail this monitoring into retail dispensaries. All retail dispensaries should be held to the same standard the state is requiring already licensed professionals to uphold, and those moving into New York State.
We have reviewed the information sent about the dire need for state board members. We will be sharing your entire correspondence by way of a link from the NYSSO website homepage and within our next newsletter. We intend to also supply a link to the application form and details to go to the main SED website for general information.
In closing we understand that in order to review the current guidelines for continuing education courses we would need to meet with state board members. Please allow me the opportunity to plan ahead when you are arranging your next meeting. I will do my best to attend in person to assist the board members. All recommendations will come from firsthand knowledge of what is available from educators and manufacturers, domestic and abroad.
Expanding the guidelines to include new course material will bring continuing education to a higher, more current level that parallels what is necessary knowledge around new products and technology. We look forward to that invitation.
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