Use It Or Lose It: The Medicare Low Vision Demonstration Project (Speaker's Corner‪)‬

The Medicare Low Vision Demonstration Project is now one year old. This project constitutes a unique and pivotal opportunity for vision rehabilitation professionals. If it succeeds, it will open up significant opportunities for funding and provision of services. But, if it fails, it could represent another nail in the coffin of specialized services. The question now is whether professionals in the field of visual impairment and blindness will step up to the plate to ensure that this project is successful. The achievements of the project have been encouraging so far, but there are a number of significant weaknesses, and there is still much to do. This column offers a progress report on the project and examines its serious implications. Although some reports have appeared in previous issues of the Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness (JVIB) (see, for example, the Comment entitled "Medicare Coverage for Orientation and Mobility Services," by Lorraine Lidoff, which appeared in October 2005; and the special report that appeared in the From the Field department of the August 2006 issue), let me first provide an overview of the project for anyone who is not familiar with it.