65-1508. Act not to prevent persons licensed to practice medicine from performing certain acts or services; authorizing the delegation of certain examination procedures to assistants; limitations and prohibitions upon examination procedures performed by assistants. (a) Nothing in this act shall be construed to prevent persons who are licensed to practice medicine and surgery in this state from performing the acts or services authorized for optometrists under the optometry law or from delegating the performance of screening procedures for visual acuities, color vision, visual fields and intraocular pressure to assistants.

(b) The examination procedures performed by assistants to optometrists or ophthalmologists shall be limited to data gathering at the direct request of the ophthalmologist or optometrist and to those examination procedures which do not require professional interpretation or professional judgment. These examination procedures may be performed by assistants only under the immediate and personal supervision and within the office of an ophthalmologist or optometrist. Delegation to such assistants of the external and internal evaluation of the eye, biomicroscopic evaluation, subjective refraction, gonioscopic evaluation, final contact lens fit evaluation, orthoptic and strabismus evaluations, visual training evaluations, analysis of findings and the prescribing of ophthalmic lenses are prohibited.

(c) Persons who dispense ophthalmic materials pursuant to the prescription of a person licensed to practice medicine and surgery or optometry shall not be construed to be assistants within the meaning of this section.

History: L. 1923, ch. 220, § 12; R.S. 1923, 65-1508; L. 1939, ch. 240, § 3; L. 1976, ch. 270, § 4; L. 1977, ch. 216, § 2; L. 1990, ch. 223, § 4; July 1.