Florida Statutes 463.014 – Certain acts prohibited
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(1)(a) No corporation, lay body, organization, or individual other than a licensed practitioner shall engage in the practice of optometry through the means of engaging the services, upon a salary, commission, or other means or inducement, of any person licensed to practice optometry in this state. Nothing in this section shall be deemed to prohibit the association of a licensed practitioner with a multidisciplinary group of licensed health care professionals, the primary objective of which is the diagnosis and treatment of the human body.
Terms Used In Florida Statutes 463.014
- Board: means the Board of Optometry. See Florida Statutes 463.002
- Certified optometrist: means a licensed practitioner authorized by the board to administer and prescribe ocular pharmaceutical agents. See Florida Statutes 463.002
- Corporation: A legal entity owned by the holders of shares of stock that have been issued, and that can own, receive, and transfer property, and carry on business in its own name.
- Licensed practitioner: means a person who is a primary health care provider licensed to engage in the practice of optometry under the authority of this chapter. See Florida Statutes 463.002
- Optometry: means the diagnosis of conditions of the human eye and its appendages; the employment of any objective or subjective means or methods, including the administration of ocular pharmaceutical agents, for the purpose of determining the refractive powers of the human eyes, or any visual, muscular, neurological, or anatomic anomalies of the human eyes and their appendages; and the prescribing and employment of lenses, prisms, frames, mountings, contact lenses, orthoptic exercises, light frequencies, and any other means or methods, including ocular pharmaceutical agents, for the correction, remedy, or relief of any insufficiencies or abnormal conditions of the human eyes and their appendages. See Florida Statutes 463.002
- Surgery: means a procedure using an instrument, including a laser, scalpel, or needle, in which human tissue is cut, burned, scraped except as provided in…. See Florida Statutes 463.002
(b) No licensed practitioner shall engage in the practice of optometry with any corporation, organization, group, or lay individual. This provision shall not prohibit licensed practitioners from employing, or from forming partnerships or professional associations with, licensed practitioners licensed in this state or with other licensed health care professionals, the primary objective of whom is the diagnosis and treatment of the human body.
(c) No rule of the board shall forbid the practice of optometry in or on the premises of a commercial or mercantile establishment.
(d) No licensed practitioner may practice under practice identification names, trade names, or service names, unless any dissemination of information by the practitioner to consumers contains the name under which the practitioner is licensed or that of the professional association in which the practitioner participates. Any advertisement or other dissemination of information to consumers may contain factual information as to the geographic location of licensed practitioners or of the availability of optometric services.
(e) No licensed practitioner shall adopt and publish or cause to be published any practice identification name, trade name, or service name which is, contains, or is intended to serve as an affirmation of the quality or competitive value of the optometric services provided at the identified practice.
(2) A corporation or labor organization may employ licensed practitioners to provide optometric services to bona fide employees of such corporation and members of their immediate families or to bona fide members of such labor organization and members of their immediate families, provided the provision of such services is incidental to the legitimate business of such corporation or labor organization. Nothing in this section shall be deemed to authorize the employment of licensed practitioners by corporations or organizations formed primarily for such purposes.
(3) Prescribing, ordering, dispensing, administering, supplying, selling, or giving any drug for the purpose of treating a systemic disease by a licensed practitioner is prohibited. However, a certified optometrist is permitted to use commonly accepted means or methods to immediately address incidents of anaphylaxis.
(4) Surgery of any kind is expressly prohibited. Certified optometrists may remove superficial foreign bodies. For the purposes of this subsection, the term “superficial foreign bodies” means any foreign matter that is embedded in the conjunctiva or cornea but that has not penetrated the globe. Notwithstanding the definition of surgery as provided in s. 463.002(6), a certified optometrist is not prohibited from providing any optometric care within the practice of optometry as defined in s. 463.002(7), such as removing an eyelash by epilation, probing an uninflamed tear duct in a patient 18 years of age or older, blocking the puncta by plug, or superficial scraping for the purpose of removing damaged epithelial tissue or superficial foreign bodies or taking a culture of the surface of the cornea or conjunctiva.
(5) No rule of the board shall prohibit a licensed practitioner from authorizing a board-certified optician to fill, fit, adapt, or dispense a contact lens prescription as authorized under chapter 484.