The Oregon Board of Optometry accepts courses related to the maintenance or advancement of professional skills and clinical abilities approved by COPE (Council on Optometric Practitioner Education). If such a course has been COPE approved, the Board shall accept the course as meeting its continuing education requirements for license renewal excepting Category D as indicated below.
COPE course category A (designated as other category for OBO) - clinical Optometry which includes:
Contact Lenses (CL), Functional Vision/Pediatric (FV), General Optometry (GO), Low Vision (LV) and Public Health (PB)--courses completed on or after 11/10/2020 are eligible.
COPE course category B (designated as TMOD category for OBO) - Ocular Disease and C - Related Systemic Disease are approved as meeting the Board's nine (9) hours per license year requirement of continuing optometric education in the area of diagnosis, treatment and management of ocular disease (TMOD). Category B - Ocular Disease includes:
Glaucoma (GL), Injection Skills (IS), Laser Procedures (LP), Peri-Operative Management of Ophthalmic Surgery (PO), Surgery Procedures (SP), Treatment and Management of Ocular Disease (TD).
Category C (designated as TMOD category for OBO) - Related Systemic Disease includes:
Neuro-Optometry (NO), Pharmacology (PH), Systemic/Ocular Disease (SD).
COPE course category D, which includes Practice Management (PM) and Ethics/Jurisprudence (EJ) are NOT approved by the Oregon Board of Optometry, unless it is an optometric ethics course that has been individually evaluated and approved by the Board.
As of 1/10/22, licensees can report COPE pain courses (other than EJ or PM categories) for their biennial pain management requirement. The first renewal must be the Oregon Pain Management course. Subsequent renewals can use the COPE approved pain courses.
It is the responsibility of the licensee to ensure that any continuing optometric education coursework submitted for credit meets the criteria of this rule. The Oregon Board of Optometry will review the COPE criteria for course category definitions to determine if the process and categories are within the standards it has set. Those COPE category definitions not acceptable to the Board will be identified to COPE and listed in the Board’s administrative rules.