LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — As an optometrist in the small Arkansas town of Osceola, Dr. Matthew Jones must tell patients several times a week to seek treatment elsewhere — sometimes as far as an hour away — for procedures he says he's fully capable of performing.

"They look at me and ask, 'Why don't you just do it?' I tell them, 'I'm not legally allowed to do it,'" Jones said.

He and other optometrists hope to change that after successfully lobbying Arkansas' Legislature to change the law to expand the procedures they can perform. It prompted an unexpectedly expensive and heated lobbying fight i...