Sec. 351.364. RELATIONSHIPS WITH DISPENSING OPTICIANS. (a) If an optometrist or therapeutic optometrist occupies space for the practice of optometry or therapeutic optometry on premises on which a person engages in the business of a dispensing optician, solid partitions or walls from floor to ceiling must separate the space occupied by the optometrist or therapeutic optometrist from the space occupied by the dispensing optician.

(b) The space occupied by the optometrist or therapeutic optometrist must have a patient's entrance opening on a public thoroughfare, such as a public street, hall, lobby, or corridor. An entrance is not considered a patient's entrance unless actually used as an entrance by the optometrist's or therapeutic optometrist's patients.

(c) An optometrist or therapeutic optometrist may engage in the business of a dispensing optician, own stock in a corporation engaged in the business of a dispensing optician, or be a partner in a firm engaged in the business of a dispensing optician, but the records and accounts of the business of a dispensing optician must be kept separate from those of the optometric practice.

(d) The purpose of this section is to ensure that the practices of optometry and therapeutic optometry are carried out in a manner completely separate from the business of a dispensing optician, with no control of one by the other and no solicitation for one by the other, except as described by this section.

Acts 1999, 76th Leg., ch. 388, Sec. 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1999.