California Business and Professions Code § 655

(a) For the purposes of this section, the following terms have the following meanings: (1) “Health plan” means a health care service plan licensed pursuant to the Knox-Keene Health Care Service Plan Act of 1975 (Chapter 2.2 (commencing with Section 1340) of Division 2 of the Health and Safety Code). (2) “Optical company” means a person or entity that is engaged in the manufacture, sale, or distribution to physicians and surgeons, optometrists, health plans, or dispensing opticians of lenses, frames, optical supplies, or optometric appliances or devices or kindred products. (3) “Optometrist” means a person licensed pursuant to Chapter 7 (commencing with Section 3000) or an optometric corporation, as described in Section 3160. (4) “Physician and surgeon” means a person licensed by the Medical Board of California or the Osteopathic Medical Board of California under Chapter 5 (commencing with Section 2000) or a medical corporation that is authorized to render professional services, as defined in Section 13401 of the Corporations Code. (5) “Registered dispensing optician” means a person or entity licensed pursuant to Chapter 5.5 (commencing with Section 2550). (6) “Therapeutic ophthalmic product” means lenses or other products that provide direct treatment of eye disease or visual rehabilitation for diseased eyes. (b) No optometrist may have any membership, proprietary interest, coownership, or any profit-sharing arrangement, either by stock ownership, interlocking directors, trusteeship, mortgage, or trust deed, with any registered dispensing optician or any optical company, except as otherwise permitted under this section. (c) (1) A registered dispensing optician or an optical company may operate, own, or have an ownership interest in a health plan so long as the health plan does not directly employ optometrists to provide optometric services directly to enrollees of the health plan, and may directly or indirectly provide products and services to the health plan or its contracted providers or enrollees or to other optometrists. For purposes of this section, an optometrist may be employed by a health plan as a clinical director for the health plan pursuant to Section 1367.01 of the Health and Safety Code or to perform services related to utilization management or quality assurance or other similar related services that do not require the optometrist to directly provide health care services to enrollees. In addition, an optometrist serving as a clinical director may not employ optometrists to provide health care services to enrollees of the health plan for which the optometrist is serving as clinical director. For the purposes of this section, the health plan’s utilization management and quality assurance programs that are consistent with the Knox-Keene Health Care Service Plan Act of 1975 (Chapter 2.2 (commencing with Section 1340) of Division 2 of the Health and Safety Code) do not constitute providing health care services to enrollees. (2) The registered dispensing optician or optical company shall not interfere with the professional judgment of the optometrist. (3) The Department of Managed Health Care shall forward to the California State Board of Optometry any complaints received from consumers that allege that an optometrist violated the Optometry Practice Act (Chapter 7 (commencing with Section 3000)). The Department of Managed Health Care and the California State Board of Optometry shall enter into an Inter-Agency Agreement regarding the sharing of information related to the services provided by an optometrist that may be in violation of the Optometry Practice Act that the Department of Managed Health Care encounters in the course of the administration of the Knox-Keene Health Care Service Plan Act of 1975 (Chapter 2.2 (commencing with Section 1340) of Division 2 of the Health and Safety Code). (d) An optometrist, a registered dispensing optician, a physician and surgeon, an optical company, or a 

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