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The Board has launched its public consultation on the review of the Endorsement for scheduled medicines for optometrists. You can read more about the proposal to increase access to sight-saving treatments for patients below – we encourage you to have your say.
It’s renewal time for registered optometrists and for new graduates, congratulations – it’s time to register. To make your experience as smooth as possible, log in to your new Ahpra portal early to complete your renewal or registration. Read on for more information on how to log in for the first time.
Keep your eye on the Board’s website and communications to stay up to date with our projects and progress.
Stuart Aamodt Chair, Optometry Board of Australia
CONTENT WARNING. This newsletter contains references to sexual misconduct that some readers might find distressing.
If you need help, support is available.
You can access 24-hour phone and online support services from the national sexual assault, family, and domestic violence helpline:1800 Respect.
13YARN can provide crisis support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.
Registered health practitioners who have had a concern raised about them are encouraged to contact their insurer, professional association or legal adviser for guidance and support. We publish information on general and profession specific support services on Ahpra's Support services page.
My inspiration comes from experiencing our health system as both a practitioner and consumer, and how we can use these experiences to make care better. After nine years on the Registration and Notifications Committee I have seen the challenges that can arise after a problem occurs. Joining the Board provides an opportunity to use these insights to prevent these problems.
I have worked for 35 years in public eye health, both in Victoria and with Aboriginal-controlled health organisations in the Northern Territory. My roles have included clinical practice, management, and service development, all focused on improving access and delivery of public health eyecare. Now I work for the University of Melbourne in the Collaborative Practice Centre to improve the way students and educators work and communicate across disciplines, and I am also working to establish opportunities for clinical placements in Central Australia.
I aim to use my skills as a practitioner, educator, and health systems manager to improve the safety and quality of eyecare in the community. I am committed to fostering better cohesion within the health workforce and supporting initiatives that enhance eyecare delivery. My motivation is to strengthen systems that enable the development and provision of safe, high-quality care, promote positive change, while ensuring safety and improving care for everyone.
The Board is reviewing its Registration standard: Endorsement for scheduled medicines and Guidelines for use of scheduled medicines.
As part of its review, the Board is proposing changes that would allow endorsed optometrists to prescribe oral medicines where clinically appropriate, to treat sight-threatening conditions such as bacterial eye infections, allergies, and short-term eye pain. Currently, optometrists diagnose and prescribe topical treatments, but patients often need to see a GP or ophthalmologist for oral prescriptions. The proposed change would improve access to care, especially in rural and remote areas, and could prevent permanent vision loss by enabling timely treatment.
If approved, the changes would bring Australia in line with countries like New Zealand, the UK, and the USA. No additional training would be required for therapeutically endorsed optometrists, who are already qualified to prescribe topical treatments. If approved, optometrists would prescribe from an approved list of oral medicines, updated regularly to reflect best practice.
Have your say on the public consultation on the review of the Board’s Registration standard: Endorsement for scheduled medicines and Guidelines for use of scheduled medicines. Submissions close on 24 December 2025.
Read more in the media release.
The Board and Ahpra have published a new paper in the Australian Health Review titled ‘Workforce retention and attrition trends among optometrists in Australia: key factors and reasons.’ This research is part of a broader project exploring why registered health practitioners choose to stay in, or leave, their professions.
Here’s what the data tells us:
The survey of 1,741 optometrists revealed that:
For those considering leaving, the most common reasons were:
You can read the full paper on the Australian Health Review website. For more on the wider project, visit Research provides clues to boost health workforce retention on the Ahpra news page.
Registration renewal for optometrists is now open. Make sure to renew your registration by 30 November 2025 to avoid paying a late fee.
If you don’t renew before 31 December 2025, your registration will lapse, you’ll be removed from the register of practitioners, and you won’t be able to use the protected title, optometrist.
Ahpra has a new online portal to manage all aspects of your registration, including multifactor authentication (MFA) to provide an extra layer of security protecting your data.
Read more and access online renewal at the Board website.
Before you renew, you will need to link an authenticator app to your portal. This app generates a one-time 6-digit code and is more secure than sending the code by SMS. Every time you log in, you’ll enter:
If you already know your username and password, you can log in now and link MFA. Your username will be sent to you via email before you need to renew. If you haven’t received this email, please contact us via an online enquiry or call 1300 419 495 (within Australia) +61 3 9125 3010 (overseas callers).
If you share your email account with someone else, such as your partner, or use a group email such as ‘[email protected]’ then you will need to change it to an email that is unique to you when you first log in. There’s information available on the Ahpra portal help centre on how to do this.
The Board’s quarterly registration data to 30 September 2025 has been released. At this date, there were 7,419 registered optometrists. Non-practising optometrists made up 231 of that number, plus 29 optometrists with limited registration.
There are 5,701 optometrists with scheduled medicines endorsement, 79.6 per cent of the profession.
There are 13 optometrists who identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander, or 0.2 per cent of the profession.
For more details, including registration data by principal place of practice, age and gender, visit our Statistics page.
The first step in applying for registration is to create your Ahpra portal and link multifactor authentication. Your portal is where you will manage all aspects of your registration throughout your career as a registered optometrist.
We have an online portal help centre with step-by-step instructions and videos on how to create your portal and securely link your multifactor authentication app.
On the Graduate applications page of the Ahpra website, you will find helpful guides on completing your application for registration, tips for how to avoid delays, and information flyers you can download for working offline. There is also a page of frequently asked questions that go into more detail on a range of topics.
You may need to provide supporting documents with your application to prove that you meet the Board’s registration standards including meeting the English language skills requirements. Make sure you provide all the documents we need with your application so we can assess it quicker.
We can’t finalise your application until we receive your graduation results from your education provider.
If you’ve submitted everything needed to prove you’ve met the requirements for registration, we aim to finalise your application within two weeks of receiving your graduation results.
For more information, read the news item.
Help protect your data by being alert to scammers and only logging in to the Ahpra portal direct from the Ahpra website: www.ahpra.gov.au.
We will only ask you to log in to your Ahpra portal when you’re due to apply for or renew your registration.
Changes to the way sexual misconduct is reported on the public Register of practitioners are coming in early 2026.
Practitioners who have a tribunal finding of professional misconduct involving sexual misconduct will have this information permanently published on the register. This change is retrospective, applying from the start of regulation of a profession in the National Scheme. For optometrists this is 1 July 2010.
The information recorded on the register will include a statement that:
Health ministers decided on this change to protect public safety and ensure people are able to make an informed decision when choosing a health practitioner.
Ahpra and the National Boards are finalising guidance on sexual misconduct and the National Law following extensive consultation and will release this guidance as soon as possible. We have also produced a guide to the overall suite of National Law changes which includes more detail on the sexual misconduct changes.
This change will be distressing for some practitioners. If you are contacted by Ahpra about additional information being put on your register entry, we encourage you to contact your insurer, professional association or legal adviser for guidance and support. We publish information on general and profession specific support services on our support services page.
Ahpra CEO Justin Untersteiner called for renewed collaboration at the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme’s annual meeting in Melbourne, describing Ahpra as stewards of Australia’s health system.
Reflecting on four months of national stakeholder engagement, Justin acknowledged the opportunities and challenges ahead and discussed current priorities including improving notifications, preventing harm, ending racism in healthcare, and ensuring a responsive workforce.
Justin urged stakeholders to take a system-wide view and collaborate across Ahpra, boards, accreditors, and educators to better meet evolving workforce needs.
‘As stewards of the health system, we must all accept responsibility for the long-term integrity and sustainability of what has been entrusted to us,’ he said. ‘The nature of our roles – distinct but connected – obliges us to support a health workforce that can support Australia.’
Read the full speech.
People who make a complaint against a health practitioner will be protected from reprisals or retaliation under increases to consumer protections coming into effect from 1 December 2025.
People who make a complaint in good faith are already protected from liability for information they provide to Ahpra and the National Boards. The changes will extend this protection, making it an offence for someone to threaten, intimidate or otherwise retaliate against a notifier for making a complaint.
The maximum penalty will be $60,000 for an individual or $120,000 for a body corporate.
It will also be illegal to enter into a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with a patient, unless it clearly states in writing that it does not limit a person from making a notification or providing assistance to regulators. Any NDAs that do seek to limit a person’s ability to make a complaint will be invalid.
The consumer protection changes are part of series of amendments to the National Law coming into effect over the coming months.
Information on the changes, how they will be implemented and what they mean for practitioners and the public is available in the full information guide.
The guide is available on the National Law amendments page on the Ahpra website, which includes links to related topics and will be updated as our implementation activities progress.
The guidance for telehealth and virtual care has been updated to ensure patients receive high-quality care – whether it be in person, over the phone or online.
It expands advice for telehealth prescribers, highlighting poor practice concerns around prescribing that relies on text, email or online questionnaires to assess a patients’ needs rather than a face-to-face, video or telephone consultation.
‘Telehealth has been great in making it easier for people to get the care they need. We just want to make sure that convenience doesn’t come at the cost of safety or quality,’ Ahpra CEO Justin Untersteiner said.
The guidance reinforces to practitioners that any healthcare provided through telehealth is the practitioner’s responsibility and not the employer’s. Practitioners working in telehealth-only clinics, particularly those focused on single treatments or medicines, are encouraged to review the clinical governance framework to ensure the care they provide isn’t compromised by commercial gain or convenience.
Good telehealth practices include:
National Boards have also developed case studies for safe use of telehealth, identifying common mistakes like prescribing in an initial telehealth consultation or opting for telehealth when a face-to-face consultation is necessary.
