Florida Insurance Council - Covering Florida Since 1962
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel On February 11, 2020, the Senate Health Policy Committee approved a strike all amendment (715644) to the newborn eye care mandate bill to remove the health insurance coverage mandate and instead limit the bill to provision of a pamphlet on eye and vision disorders. The original version of the…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel On February 6, 2020, the House air ambulance bill cleared its last committee of reference and will now be heard on the House floor when set by the Rules Committee. Under current law, air ambulances are still allowed to balance bill consumers. In contrast, balance billing by out-of-network health…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel HB 599 by Rep. Anna Maria Rodriguez (R) expands the scope of practice for consultant pharmacists. A similar bill passed the House last year, but died in the Senate when it was never heard in committee. This year’s consultant pharmacist bill was approved by its last committee of reference…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel HB 1279 tweaks the health insurance shared savings program. It passed its second committee on February 4, 2020 and is now in its last committee. The bill was not amended. The shared savings program was created in 2019 as a voluntary program for health insurers and HMOs to provide…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel The House Health Market Reform Subcommittee approved the Agency for Health Care Administration’s agency bill, HB 731, when it met on February 4, 2020. The Committee adopted a strike all amendment to the bill. The bill has two committees left. The bill covers a variety of topics, but only…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel During committee on February 4, 2020, the House removed a health insurance provision from HB 1187 relating to discrimination by health insurers against organ donors. The provision removed via a strike all amendment specified that no insurer offering individual coverage can employ a preexisting condition exclusion with the effect…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel HB 1205 deals with disclosures from health care providers to patients when the cash price for a covered medical service is cheaper than the patient’s cost sharing obligation under health insurance. The bill is one of a large number of House health care reform bills designed to further Speaker…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel The House moved their bill prohibiting balance billing by air ambulances out of its second committee on January 29, 2020. Under current law, air ambulances are still allowed to balance bill consumers. In contrast, balance billing by out-of-network health care providers for emergency or nonemergency services was abolished in…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel SB 1556 and HB 1179 prohibit specified entities from denying, refusing to allocate, or lowering an individual’s priority for organ transplant medical services solely on the basis of an individual’s intellectual or developmental disability. The insurance part of the bills prohibits insurers, nonprofit health care service plans, and health…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel The House Health Market Reform Subcommittee approved a bill making tweaks to the health insurance shared savings program during its meeting on January 28, 2020. The bill was not amended. The shared savings program was created in 2019 as a voluntary program for health insurers and HMOs to provide…