The AOS Inaugural Meeting, scheduled for March 26-28th, 2010, is a Practice Management Seminar, aimed towards giving ideas to help you work smarter and provide better patient care and service and also hopefully allowing you to make more money at the same time. Some of the lectures may be eligible for CE credits but it depends on your state regulations as to how many hours you will receive.
We will be providing documentation to each of the registrants on the courses and hours, so if you choose to, you can then submit to your own state board.

Your initial paid membership with the AOS lasts through December 31st, 2010.  Memberships will be yearly after that date.

First, and foremost, you can tell your friends and colleagues about AOS and encourage them to join. AOS cannot succeed without a strong and supportive membership. While associate members are surely appreciated, it is only through the collective efforts and strength of our regular dues-paying members that the AOS will grow, thrive, and ultimately achieve its mission. Second, you can write and email the AOA and let them know your thoughts and why you support the AOS. Third, you can volunteer to be an AOS state liaison to assist the AOS in its grass-roots efforts to restore faith in the AOA by voting out its current leadership and supporting leaders that represent instead of dictate.

National licensure is a complex matter because (a) it requires legislative action in most if not all states, and (b) scope of practice and CE requirements vary considerably from one state to the next. However, the AOS believes that, working with ARBO and development of a national standard for maintenance of competency are essential first steps toward the goal of national licensure, and the AOS hopes to be able to start that process. The AOS does not believe that national licensure can be quickly achieved, but first steps must be taken or it will never be achieved. So, though it does not have unrealistic expectations, AOS does intend to support any reasonable action which will make National Licensure more attainable in the future.

First, the AOS believes very strongly that, because it claims there is no assurance an optometrist is competent unless he or she has obtained ABO board certification, the AOA/ABO construct for board certification is divisive and denigrating to the profession. ABO board certification will not only be excessively expensive and operate as a massive money making machine for the AOA and ABO, but it is based on a false premise and should therefore be rejected by the profession. The AOS believes that entry level optometric competence is assured by having completed a rigorous and comprehensive four year post-graduate optometric training program, passing equally rigorous and objective third-party administered national board exams, and obtaining state licensure. Therefore, as a practical matter, state licensure of an optometrist provides the public with the same level of assurance of entry level competence as board certification does to a medical specialty. With that as a starting point, the AOS generally supports the concept of a reasonable, attainable, reasonably priced, and credible means of demonstrating ongoing or maintenance of entry level competence. The AOS Board, as well as the AOS membership based on the results of its recent survey, further believes that it should support ARBO and any other organization that proposes to offer this to the profession.

The AOS has studied the litigation option and, at least for the time being, has decided that, though potentially viable on its merits, it is not a good option at this time for several reasons. First, suing the AOA could cripple them at a time that they need to be working for optometry in Washington DC. Second, it can only hurt optometry to bring a fight about optometric competency into the courts. It is unavoidable that, to prevail, the AOS would have to show that the AOA, the recognized representative of optometry, has declared that there is no assurance optometrists are competent. Though the AOS would be arguing that this is untrue, that optometrists are indeed very competent, there is no doubt our political foes would seize the opportunity to turn the AOA’s words against the profession. The AOS sees no upside in helping this happen. Third, a lawsuit would take all, and more, of the funds available to the AOS, and prevent the AOS from doing anything else for optometry.

While each individual must decide for themselves what is best, and certainly facts could change the AOS policy down the road, currently the AOS does not encourage or recommend anyone quitting the AOA. This is for several reasons. First, though AOS strongly disagrees with the actions of the AOA, and feels the current AOA leadership needs to be replaced with individuals that understand that their job is to represent optometrists, not dictate to them, optometry continues to need the representation the AOA provides during this contentions time in Washington DC concerning health care reform. AOS is concerned that if the AOA continues to lose members it could become ineffective in representing optometry in Washington. Second, and perhaps more importantly, the AOS wields a lot more leverage and power to reforming the AOA and usher in new leaders and a new era if many of its members are AOA members. Once you quit AOA there is nothing more you can do to fix it. Much of the power of the AOS to restore trust in the AOA can come only from the fact that AOS will present the unified voice of 100’s, if not 1000’s of AOA members.

If you have sent in your membership dues you have become a Founding Member of AOS. If you wish to donate more than the dues amount  (any amount above and beyond the regular dues) you will be listed on our "Honor Roll"" on this website.

If you registered at ConcernedOptometry.org, we have now entered your information into our system.  If you need to access your username and password please follow this link to retrieve your data:

http://www.optometricsociety.org/component/comprofiler/lostpassword.html

You should have received an email with your username and password on December 27th, 2009.

There are currently no "members only" sections to the site. Logging in does allow you to visit your USER PROFILE and makes changes there, including demographics, password, and subscription (membership) types.