Today the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled that the Arkansas Secretary of State must continue to count the ballot referendum signatures that were collected earlier this year to place Act 579 (optometric surgery) on next year’s ballot. The lawsuit, brought by Safe Surgery Arkansas, challenged the Secretary of State’s decision to not count nearly 60,000 of the 88,000 signatures gathered over the summer to place the referendum on the ballot, giving voters the opportunity to overturn the Optometry Eye Surgery Bill.… Read More

Safe Surgery Arkansas, a coalition of medical doctors with years of extensive surgical training, announced the formation of a ballot question committee to coordinate a statewide referendum challenging Act 579 of 2019.  The coalition includes… Read More

The American Medical Association (AMA) and Arkansas Medical Society (AMS) commended Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson and the Arkansas General Assembly for putting an end to senseless administrative barriers to evidence-based treatment for opioid use disorder… Read More

By a vote of 49 yeas, 37 nays, and 14 no-votes, the House FAILED the CRNA Supervision Removal Bill (SB 184). To get an update on the other bills we’re tracking visit our website. http://bit.ly/AMSBillTracking… Read More

SB 184 (Stubblefield) passed out of the House Public Health Committee with 11 “yes” votes and 8 “no” votes. It will now be heard in the full House of Representatives on Monday, April 1st. The… Read More

Despite powerful testimony from Charlotte Allison, a patient whose eyes were permanently damaged by a laser used by an optometrist, the Senate Public Health Committee voted 5 to 2 in favor of passing the Optometrists… Read More

Last week, the Arkansas House of Representatives passed House Bill 1251, which allows optometrists to perform surgery on the eye ball and eye lid.  We believe this would jeopardize patient safety and lower the quality of… Read More

HB 1251 (Eubanks) passed out of the full House on March 6 with 70 “yes” votes, 19 “no votes”, and 11 not voting. What this means now is that HB 1251 will go to the… Read More

The first week hearing Scope of Practice bills at the Capitol went well, but the fight is not over.  Next week is also critical, so all physicians are invited to come to the House Public… Read More

The Senate and House Public Health, Welfare, and Labor Committees will start hearing scope of practice bills beginning on Tuesday, February 19.  This is the time for all physicians to come together to stand up… Read More