Vision loss is a major and growing public health issue, and vision rehabilitation services should be covered by Medicare, Medicaid, and private health insurance. This is in addition to about 3.9 million persons under age 45 who report a vision impairment, according to the National Health Interview Survey. As the Baby Boom generation ages, the numbers of visually impaired Americans will grow rapidly. Vision loss has a powerful impact on daily life and health, affecting an individual's ability to communicate through reading and writing, manage household tasks, move around safely indoors and in the community, and handle medications and other health care regimens.
Impaired vision is a major contributing factor to falls, especially among older adults.
Despite the extent of the need, very few people actually receive vision rehabilitation services. This extremely low figure is the result of lack of public knowledge about vision rehabilitation services and lack of adequate funding to pay for needed services, especially for people who do not have an employment goal and thus are not eligible for the federal-state vocational rehabilitation system. Despite the clear parallel between vision loss and other physical impairments, and between vision rehabilitation and other therapies designed to restore lost function, health insurance coverage for vision rehabilitation is almost non-existent. Historical reasons for this lack of coverage have now been overshadowed by the large and growing extent of the need, and by the logic of turning to the health care system to address a public health problem. Just at this critical moment, the vision rehabilitation field is facing competition from other providers in the health care sector.