Keeping Several Optometry Renewals on One Calendar

One license is easy to keep: a reminder arrives, you do the CE, you renew. Three or four licenses are a scheduling problem, because no two states share a cycle. Some renew every year, most every two years, New York every three. Some use fixed dates, some your birthday, some your birth month. And many of the fixed dates land in the same few weeks.

When do the states renew?

Verified renewal dates, grouped by month:

• January: Mississippi on or before Jan. 1 each year; Rhode Island Jan. 31 each year.
• February: Arkansas Feb. 1 each year; Florida Feb. 28 of odd years; Nevada Feb. 28 or 29 of even years.
• March: Kentucky and Louisiana March 1 each year; Colorado March 31 of odd years; DC and Illinois March 31 of even years; Virginia March 31 each year.
• April: Maine before April 1 each year; Indiana April 1 of even years; Wyoming April 1 each year.
• June and July: West Virginia June 30 each year (the board asks for June 15); Montana and New Mexico July 1 each year; Vermont July 31 of even years.
• August and September: Nebraska Aug. 1 of even years; Utah Sept. 30 of even years.
• October to December: Alabama opens Oct. 1 and is late after Nov. 1; Wisconsin Dec. 14 of odd years; North Dakota Dec. 20 each year; Georgia and Hawaii Dec. 31 of odd years.
• Your own dates: Arizona every other year on your birthday; Washington every year on your birthday; Tennessee every two years at the end of your birth month; New York every three years in your birth month.

Look at the first four months. An optometrist licensed in Florida, Kentucky, Illinois and Virginia renews four licenses between Feb. 28 and March 31 in some years, each with its own CE rules.

What happens after a missed deadline?

Grace periods are short and differ by state:

• Alabama: licenses not renewed by Nov. 1 are delinquent, and a license not renewed by Dec. 31 is automatically suspended. Renewing after Dec. 31 adds a $200 penalty.
• New Jersey: a license not renewed within 30 days of expiry is automatically suspended, and practicing on it counts as unlicensed practice.
• Montana: online late renewal runs 45 days, to Aug. 16, with a $175 late fee.
• Nevada: late renewal carries a $500 penalty; a license not renewed by May 29 expires, and relicensure needs a new application and the Nevada law exam.
• Maine: late renewal within 90 days costs an extra $300, and practicing after expiration is not covered by that window.
• Arizona: a license not renewed within four months after the birthday expires.
• Georgia: late renewal runs Jan. 1 to Jan. 31.
• West Virginia: late renewal adds $300.

Past those windows, the license usually has to be reinstated or reapplied for. See reinstating a lapsed optometry license.

Which strings attach to renewal besides the fee?

• CE completed in the right period, often with mandated topics. Iowa requires CE to be finished before you renew. See CE requirements across states.
• PDMP status. Kentucky will not renew a license held by an optometrist with a DEA number who is not registered with KASPER.
• CPR or BLS in several states, including Oklahoma, Tennessee, Vermont and West Virginia.
• Separate credentials on their own clocks. Utah's controlled substance license renews with the main license; Indiana's legend drug certificate expires with it on April 1 of even years; a DEA registration runs on its own schedule.
• Signed forms. North Dakota's renewal form is signed and mailed with the fee after the online step.

Who has to do the renewing?

You do. Renewal asks the licensee to certify the CE personally (Alabama and Pennsylvania say so explicitly), and Arkansas's rules say the responsibility of timely renewal "shall not be transferred to any employee, firm, agent, or other third party." A service or an employer can track dates, gather CE certificates and remind you; the renewal itself is yours, and the board will hold you to it.

Is there a simple system that works?

1. One list of every license, with state, number, cycle, next due date, late-renewal cutoff and the CE period it depends on.
2. Reminders at 90, 60 and 30 days before each due date, and a final one before the late-renewal cutoff.
3. A CE plan per period, not per license, so one course counts in as many states as it can.
4. A single folder of certificates sorted by state and period, ready for an audit. OE TRACKER helps for COPE courses; see OE TRACKER and CE audits.
5. Licenses you no longer use reviewed every year. Keeping a license active means paying Maine's $600 or Nevada's $900 every cycle; letting it lapse may mean reinstatement later. Decide on purpose.

How do we help?

Annual Renewal & CE Tracking is $299 per license, per year. We keep every renewal date, late cutoff, CE period and mandated topic on one calendar, remind you ahead of each deadline, and prepare a CE summary for each renewal. You complete the CE and renew each license yourself. See pricing or check a state on the state license index.