ORS Chapter 683 - Optometrists: Scope, Licensure, and Discipline
Oregon Revised Statutes Chapter 683 is the statutory floor for optometric practice. The exam tests whether you can separate statutory authority from Board rule and from ordinary clinical judgment.
Scope
ORS 683 defines the practice of optometry and authorizes the Board of Optometry to license and regulate it. In broad terms, an Oregon optometrist may examine, diagnose, treat, and manage ocular and visual conditions, prescribe corrective lenses and contact lenses, and use pharmaceutical agents allowed by law and Board rule. The statute does not make the license a general medical license: surgery and conditions outside optometric scope require referral. Scope questions turn on the actual service, the patient's condition, and the current formulary or rule-not on what a clinician feels competent to do.
Licensure and discipline
A person may not practice optometry without a Board license. Licensure is individual and nontransferable; practice through an unlicensed person or under another's license is a violation. The Board may refuse, suspend, revoke, place on probation, or otherwise discipline a licensee for statutory grounds such as fraud in licensure, unprofessional conduct, incompetence, impairment, or violation of Chapter 683 or Board rules.
Worked example
An OD diagnoses a patient with a red eye and considers a procedure the OD has never been trained to perform. The OD is licensed and clinically confident. The correct analysis is not confidence but statutory scope plus Board rule: if the procedure is outside optometric practice or not authorized, the OD must refer and document the referral. Performing it anyway can support discipline even if the outcome is good.
Traps
Assuming 'licensed optometrist' means unlimited eye care. Confusing DEA registration with state scope. Treating a statutory violation as merely a billing issue. Forgetting that discipline can arise from conduct outside the exam room.