Legislative Archives

A Summary of Florida Legislative Sessions

The 2009 Florida Legislative Session

FMA Annual Meeting Report  

 

The 2008 Florida Legislative Session

The outcome of health-related bills that were proposed

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The 2007 Florida Legislative Session

The 2007 session ended on May 4th. Thanks to the hard work of the FMA staff, FMA members, county medical societies, specialty societies, the Alliance and the support of key legislators, the medical community was able to pass some important legislation and stop a multitude of bills targeting physicians.

The following summary of some of the issues from this session was provided by FMA CEO/EVP Sandra Mortham:

Assessment of Physicians

In the last bill this year the FMA stopped an assessment on Florida physicians by extending an exemption in current law that was set to expire. Had the FMA not acted, ALL physicians who carry medical liability insurance would have been susceptible to huge assessments to bolster the state’s hurricane catastrophe fund.

Scope of Practice Bills Killed

Bills killed this year would have allowed:

• ARNPs to prescribe controlled substances, certify cause of death and sign death certificates
• Psychologists to order lab tests
• Expansion of scope of practice for Clinical Nurse Specialists

Scope of Practice Bill Passed

Legislation allowing pharmacists to administer flu shots for adults, pursuant to a protocol with a physician.

Tort Reform

An effort of the trial lawyers to strip physicians of their ability to adequately defend themselves in medical liability cases (Fabre doctrine) was killed.

Legislation that would have made it more difficult for a medical liability insurer to provide their insured physicians with an adequate defense was killed.

An amendment that created two new causes of action against physicians was killed.

Medicaid

Due to a budget shortfall there was no increase given to physicians for Medicaid reimbursements. However, the point was made that an increase is long overdue, and we expect both House and Senate leadership to work on this issue next year.

Certificate of Exemption for Physician’s Offices

A proposal that would have required doctors’ offices to pay a fee and obtain a certificate of exemption from medical clinic licensure laws was killed.

PIP

A fee schedule that the auto insurers were attempting to force on physicians and a hospital proposal to force all PIP patients into emergency rooms was killed.

Board of Medicine

A bill that would have changed the makeup of the Board of Medicine by reducing the number of doctors on the board and increasing the number of lay persons was killed. The FMA also assisted FOMA and the Board of Osteopathic Medicine in passing legislation regarding licensure of DOs.

Physician Workforce Data Collection

Legislation was passed requiring the collection of physician workforce data by the Department of Health. This data is to assess the negative impact on Florida’s physician workforce due to the medical liability crisis and inadequate reimbursement levels, and will be used for medical education planning.

Electronic Prescribing

Legislation was passed that waives the licensure renewal fee (a savings of about $400) for physicians who implement electronic prescribing systems.

Other Bills

Legislation prohibiting certain types of psychiatric treatment for children was passed.

A law that requires fiscal intermediaries to comply with current prompt pay laws was passed.

A law that allows a doctor to control the type of drugs given to transplant patients was passed.

Legislation that would have increased the cost and burden on physicians who treat deaf/hearing impaired patients was killed.

Special Session

Governor Crist will be calling a Special Session in June and PIP may be included along with Property Tax Reform.

Special Thanks

SCMS and the medical community owe a special thanks to FMA CEO/EVP Sandra Mortham and the entire FMA legislative staff for their work this past legislative session. The staff, headed by Francie Plendl, did a phenomenal job. Francie, John Knight, Jeff Scott, Fred Whitson and Michelle Jacquis have worked incredibly hard over the last six months, and spent many long nights over the last two weeks of the session making sure our interests were protected. Thanks also to Sarah Rothell for the wonderful job she did coordinating the FMA legislative visitation program with the Florida Chapter of the ACP.

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Report on the 2006 Legislative Session

The medical community showed considerable strength during the 2006 Florida Legislative Session that ended the first of May.  The Florida Medical Association, with assistance from our other state medical associations, helped pass several significant pieces of legislation, while thwarting almost all the bills opposed by organized medicine.

Major bills passed:

• HB 145/SB 2006 - the elimination of joint and several liability:   Passage of this bill was a joint effort between the FMA and the business community, and was strongly opposed by the trial bar.  It is hoped that this bill will make it less likely that non-negligent physicians will be named in lawsuits, and ultimately help lower medical liability premiums.  It should at least help restore some fairness to the fault apportionment process. 

• HB 699:  This bill reins in uncontrolled expansion of unsupervised satellite offices, while also addressing several other important issues.  The bill:
  Reduces the Domestic Violence Mandate to once every three licensing cycles;Reduces the HIV CME mandate to once, before one's first license renewal; Requires ARNP protocols to be available for public inspection on the nurse's profile;Limits the unsupervised practice of ARNPs and PAs in satellite offices to: 4 such satellites for primary care physicians; 2 such satellites for specialists; 2 such satellites if the services are primarily skin care, and only 1 as of 2011.  Skin care satellites must be supervised by a board certified plastic surgeon or dermatologist.
  Requires the disclosure of the physician's licensure, and that of any treating health care provider working under the physician's supervision, when the patient is referred to the physician's office.  Patients must be given the opportunity to see the physician.

• HB 487 - the Truth in Medical Education Bill:  This bill requires all practitioners in an outpatient setting to disclose to the patient the license under which they are operating.  It should help prevent the deceptive practice of less-qualified practitioners concealing their training. 

Legislation successfully opposed:

• The attempt to change Amendment 3:  The FMA was successful in thwarting an attempt to change the constitutional amendment capping trial attorney contingency fees into simple legislation.  This was a major victory for the medical community, and a crushing defeat for the trial attorney lobby.

• Bills defeated in various committees:  1)  To eliminated the right to self-insure, and increased the minimum requirement for medical liability insurance (proposed by chiropractic legislators Senator Jones and Representative Frank Farkas); 2) to allow ARNP prescribing of controlled substances without supervision; and 3) to allow "naturopathic" physicians to be licensed.