COMMITTEE REPORT
Government Affairs:
Florida Legislative Session 2021 By Blake Buchanan, MD Committee Co-Chair
Photo provided by Dr. Wayne Lee, FCEP past-president 1983-85, from an ACEP Leadership & Advocacy Conference years ago. Graphic design by Joe Stern
Greetings, and I hope this update finds you well. Emergency Medicine Days 2021 was held virtually this year on April 8-9, 2021, but this remix did not stop us from having a productive and successful Legislative Session. Session ended on Friday, April 30, and Governor Ron DeSantis has a 15-day window to sign or veto the bills that were successfully passed through the State Legislature. Here is an update on where our priority issues stand:
1) PERSONAL INJURY PROTECTION (PIP) REPEAL - PASSED In the closing hours of Session, the House and Senate signed off on SB 54: Motor Vehicle Insurance, which will repeal Florida’s no-fault personal injury protection (PIP) system and replace it with bodily insurance (BI) coverage in January 2022 if signed into law by Gov. DeSantis. 10
The PIP system assures prompt payment to emergency physicians who provided mandatory care for injured motorists, and especially uninsured motorists. As such, any change in coverage should preserve first dollar coverage for the care we provide. FCEP worked to ensure that the 2.8 million Floridians without proof of health insurance will be required to purchase or opt-out of Medical Payments coverage, and that the $5,000 physician set-aside would be retained, which is key to assuring liens do not give hospitals priority access to Medical Payment funds. We succeeded: The final bill mandates Med Pay at both $5,000 and $10,000, with an opt-out in writing. Without an opt-out in writing, the policy reverts to the $10K med pay. Med pay has a $5K 30-day, physician set-aside for emergency care and inpatient care.
2) COVID-19 LIABILITY PROTECTIONS FOR HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS SIGNED INTO LAW In the first part of the legislative session, much of the focus was on bills related to the thing our whole world has centered around the past year: the pandemic. Through a lot of hard work and meetings with legislators and their staff, we witnessed the successful passing of COVID-19 liability protections for healthcare workers. While many states passed protections against malpractice lawsuits related to COVID-19 early on in the pandemic last year, Florida was one of the holdouts since the legislative session had come to an end and the Governor chose not to take executive action. Thankfully, this has been corrected with passage in both houses and a signature by Governor DeSantis in March. The bill acknowledges that healthcare
EMpulse Spring 2021
