The Senior Services staff of State Services for the Blind serve Minnesota seniors who have a vision loss that is significant enough to interfere with daily life. You can read more about what we offer.
Once you refer a patient to us, one of our counselors will contact them to let them know more about how we can assist them and to set up an appointment to meet with them. At that appointment the counselor will conduct a functional low vision assessment, and will offer aids, devices, resources and training opportunities as appropriate. These services are provided by the State of Minnesota. There is no cost for senior consumers.
The goal of our senior services team is to help consumers live successfully with vision loss. We will often work with consumers who have a diagnosis that does not meet the determination for legal blindness. While Minnesota law governs the responsibilities of ophthalmologists and optometrists to inform patients who are legally blind about the services of SSB, we also encourage eye care professionals to talk about our services to patients with progressive vision loss, even though they may not yet have a diagnosis of legal blindness.
For your records, you will need the patient’s signature on a document indicating that you have their permission to make a referral to SSB. You may wish to download and copy this form in order to have them on-hand. If you would like for us to send you a packet of these consent forms, please check the appropriate box below and provide your mailing address. The secure form below asks for patient’s name, contact info (phone or email) and ZIP Code. We will match them with one of our counselors based on ZIP Code.
