In a much anticipated committee hearing, H.4819, the second and newly-introduced optometry scope of practice bill, was discussed for over an hour and a half before the full 3M Committee voted to adjourn debate, or effectively halt any further progress of the bill for the session, on Tuesday, May 4th.

Much discussion was offered on both sides of the issue and procedural motions were made to both progress and kill the bill, but by a final vote of 9-6 H.4819 fails to move forward to the full House floor. Since the final vote was by hand only, we will post the final vote tally once all are confirmed.

A special thanks to those legislators who took the lead on advocating against the bill and speaking on behalf of physicians, including Reps. Terry Alexander (Florence), John King (Rock Hill), Curtis Brantley (Beaufort), Richard Chalk (Beaufort), and Anne Parks (Greenwood).

There are still several procedural maneuvers the opposing side could attempt to achieve passage before the end of session, but all parties are remain extremely vigilant to prevent these acts from occurring.

The defeat of this second attempt by the optometrists to legislatively broaden their scope of practice to the endangerment of South Carolina's patients is a HUGE victory for the physician and medical community. The SCMA offers a tremendous thank you to those physicians of varying specialties, spouses, practice staff and others who contacted legislators to stop passage of both H.3303 and H.4819 during the past year! We have truly proven the power of a united physician community.