Florida Insurance Council - Covering Florida Since 1962
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel After spending an hour amending the workers’ comp bill and taking public testimony on it, the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee postponed a vote on their workers’ comp bill. This is the second time a vote has been postponed – both times because the sponsor did not have enough…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel Saying he wanted more time to negotiate a compromise with the stakeholders, the Senator sponsoring the genetic testing bill asked that the bill (SB 258) be postponed during its committee hearing on April 1, 2019. The bill will likely be heard next Monday when the committee next meets. The…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel SB 1052, one of the two Senate PIP repeal bills, passed its second committee on April 1, 2019 by a vote of 5-3. The other Senate PIP repeal bill has not yet been heard in committee, so is likely dead for this Session. The House PIP repeal bill has…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel SB 1520 expands direct primary care The bill changes all statutory references of “direct primary care” to “direct health care” which authorizes direct care to be for medical services, including dental services, that are not only primary care. It maintains current law that direct health care agreements are not…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel SB 418, the Senate essential health benefits bill, is now in its last committee after passing the Senate Health Policy Committee on April 1, 2019. It was not amended by the Committee. The essential health benefits part of the bill provides more health insurance options for Floridians by permitting…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel The Senate will mandate health insurance coverage for children’s hearing aids under a bill approved on April 1, 2019 by the Senate Health Policy Committee. The bill has one committee left. Currently, there is no mandated health insurance coverage for hearing aids for children. SB 572 would change that…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel The House tort reform bill was significantly pared down during its second committee hearing on March 28, 2019. The pared down version passed with a 13-7 vote. HB 17 originally dealt with products liability, calculation of medical damages, and a cap on noneconomic damages (e.g., damages for pain and…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel The House Judiciary Committee approved the AOB bill when it met on March 28, 2019 with a 14-3 vote. This was the last committee stop for the bill which will now be heard on the House floor when set by the Rules Committee. A strike all amendment (862613) was…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel The House omnibus insurance bill cleared its last committee on March 28, 2019 when the House Commerce Committee approved it. Multiple amendments were adopted to HB 301 by the Commerce Committee. The amendments added a significant number of new issues to the bill. Some of the new issues were filed…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel HB 23 is described by the bill sponsor as a way to solve the health care provider workforce shortage in Florida. It allows over 35 types of Florida licensed health care providers to use telehealth within their scope of practice. It also allows out-of-state providers to use telehealth if…