Periodically, there are federal regulatory agency mandates which affect our industry.  This page will provide recent news on regulatory items affecting our industry. 

Recent Activity:

FTC correspondence with 1-800 CONTACTS

There have been numerous questions with regards to a letter 1-800 CONTACTS received from the Federal Trade Commission.  Based on these questions, it has become clear to us that many Eye Care Professionals are under the impression that the letter from the FTC cited the company for specific violations of the FCLCA.  This is not accurate. The FTC letter to 1-800 did not provide any specific detail on any violations, nor did it make any reference to any prescriptions filled in violation of the FCLCA.  In fact, the letter only brings to our attention that ECP’s were complaining that our fax lines were occasionally busy.  Specifically, here is what the letter stated:

“We have received a substantial number of complaints that 1800CONTACTS has not provided prescribers with a reasonable opportunity to communicate with it regarding verification requests.  Specifically, complaints allege that its fax lines are often busy, and that prescribers are therefore unable to communicate with it regarding verification requests.”

To shed light on this issue, the company performed a detailed analysis of the records of its fax system – which is capable of receiving more than a hundred faxes simultaneously.  The analysis showed that the system was down for a total of less than 2 total hours in 2005 at the time of our response (Nov. 4th).   99.98% availability over a 10 month period.  No further correspondence has been sent or received.

Letter
Our Response