Contact Lens Consumer Health Protection Act of 2016
This bill amends the Fairness to Contact Lens Consumers Act to require contact lens sellers to provide a toll-free telephone number and email address that prescribers can use to ask questions about a seller's prescription verification request.
Under current law, a prescription is considered verified if the prescriber fails to communicate with the seller within eight business hours after receiving the seller-provided verification information. The bill requires the prescription to be considered unverified until the seller obtains affirmative confirmation of the accuracy of the prescription from the prescriber in cases where a prescriber communicates a question or concern about the accuracy or verification of the prescription to a seller through the toll-free telephone service or email address before the end of that eight-hour period.
The bill removes the Federal Trade Commission's authority to adjust the eight-hour period.
If a prescriber communicates a question or concern about the accuracy of a prescription before the deadline: (1) the seller shall not fill the prescription, and (2) the prescriber shall provide the seller with an accurate prescription.
Sellers must offer prescribers different communication methods that the prescribers may select as their preferred method for verification requests.
The bill allows a seller to alter a prescription only if: (1) a private label contact lens is included on the prescription and the same contact lens is manufactured by the same company and sold under multiple labels to individual providers; and (2) the seller fills the prescription with a contact lens of exactly the same material, design, and power as manufactured by that company under another label.
Sellers must maintain a database of the issuance and expiration dates of each prescription they receive. The bill prohibits advertisements representing that a contact lens prescription may be filled after the prescription expires.
Sellers violating certain prescriber verification requirements are subject to increased penalties of up to $40,000 per violation. Such requirements apply to all contact lens sales in the United States, notwithstanding where the seller is located.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must examine the potentially adverse effects of seller violations on consumers.