Request By:
J. M. Honaker, O.D.
Kentucky Board of Optometric Examiners
1000 W. Main Street
Georgetown, KY 40324
Opinion
Opinion By: Frederic J. Cowan, Attorney General; By: E. Douglas Richards, Assistant Attorney General
You have requested an opinion of the Attorney General as to whether a licensed optometrist may collect smears and cultures from their patients and require that such specimens be analyzed by medical laboratories under KRS 333.150 and .160.
To determine the proper antibiotics to treat certain ocular infections, the attending medical professional on occasion must collect smears and cultures from the human eye for further analysis by medical laboratories licensed under KRS Chapter 333. You state that certain medical laboratories have refused to honor requests for analysis of specimens collected from the human eye by licensed optometrists. KRS 333.150 and .160 authorize only a licensed physician, podiatrist, dentist or "other person authorized by law" to collect specimens and to use the analysis of the laboratory in the treatment of patients. The question, then, is whether an optometrist is included in the phrase "other person authorized by law." See
Kentucky Assn. of Chiropractors, Inc. v. Jefferson County Medical Society, Ky., 549 S.W.2d 817 (1977).
The 1986 General Assembly amended KRS Chapter 320 to permit licensed optometrists to administer topical therapeutic pharmaceutical agents. See Acts 1986, ch. 12, § 1. KRS 320.210(2), as amended, permits an optometrist to employ "any means" other than "surgery or injection" in the "examination, diagnosis and treatment of the human eye or its appendages." In addition, KRS 320.240, as amended, permits only those optometrists with "sufficient education and professional competence" to administer topical therapeutic agents and to perform such services as may require the collection of smears and cultures. KRS 320.240(13).
Therefore, this office believes that any optometrist whom the Board of Optometric Examiners has certified under KRS 320.240(13) and (14) to use topical therapeutic pharmaceutical agents is included within the phrase "other person authorized by law." Any such optometrist may collect specimens from the eye and use the analysis of a medical laboratory in the treatment of their patient.
Please let us know if you have any further questions on this matter.