1-800-CONTACTS likes Bennett bill

In 2003, Congress passed a law that gave contact lens wearers the right to their prescriptions, so consumers could buy the right lenses from the provider of their choice.

Now, Draper-based 1-800-CONTACTS says there is trouble in the industry again, so it has backed legislation from Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, that it says will help uphold the "consumers rights" in the 2003 law by fighting collusion between lens makers and lens prescribers — and keep its business from taking a hit.

But it is facing at least one major bump in the road: the industry's own advocacy group, the American Optometric Association.

There have been two legal interventions in the contact lens business since 2000: an antitrust lawsuit filed by 32 state attorneys general, and the 2003 Fairness to Contact Lens Consumers Act.

A third is now up for congressional consideration. S2480, sponsored by Sens. Bennett and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., makes "any contact lens the manufacturer produces, markets, distributes or sells available in a commercially reasonable and nondiscriminatory manner to prescribers, entities associated with prescribers and alternative channels of distribution."

Its purpose, according to 1-800-CONTACTS spokesman Kevin McCallum, is to make permanent elements of the 2001 lawsuit settlement agreements, which are set to expire this year, and to address gaps in the 2003 law. The biggest of which, according to the company, is the threat of so-called "doctors only" lenses — contacts available, by agreements struck between manufacturers and eye doctors, from the prescribing practice or otherwise in limited ways.

"What these manufacturers are basically doing is they're tempting eye-care providers to prescribe their lenses on something other than the medical merits of the device," McCallum told the Deseret Morning News editorial board. "Here's an entity that's playing health-care provider, gatekeeper and retailer. So they're asking these doctors to consider their retail business when they make a decision about a medical device they're prescribing for a patient."

The bill, according to Bennett's spokeswoman, Mary Jane Collipriest, "ends the 'doctors only' marketing scheme, and ensures that consumers will continue to be able to purchase their contact lenses from the retailer of their choice."

S2480 already has bipartisan support, Collipriest said, including that of 38 state attorneys general.