Florida Insurance Council - Covering Florida Since 1962
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel Providing more options for health insurance is a goal of the Florida House of Representatives this Session. HB 997 is designed to accomplish that goal and covers numerous topics: association health plans, short-term health insurance, health policies with no preexisting condition exclusions, and health policies with essential health benefits.…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel The Senate frozen formulary bill (SB 1180) by Sen. Mayfield (R) passed its second committee on April 8, 2019 with a strike all amendment. Under the amended bill, a health insurer or HMO must give a 60 day notice of any change in the drug formulary on the…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel SB 7078 is a health care omnibus bill. It is a compilation of many healthcare issues, including a few health insurance related issues and began as a committee bill by the Senate Health Policy Committee. It was approved by its second committee on April 4, 2019 with four…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel HB 673 equalizes the payment for long term care insolvencies between the life and health insurance industries. It was amended in its last committee on April 4, 2019 to add an assessment exemption for certain nonprofit HMOs. Rep. Fischer (R), the bill sponsor, stated though he initially opposed a…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel On April 3, 2019, the House moved their bill creating a voluntary health shared savings incentive program to the floor when it cleared its last committee. The Senate bill is also moving this year and is in its last committee. Thus, the shared savings bills are getting into position…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel A bill dealing with referrals from health care providers to hospitals and out of network providers passed its last committee on April 3, 2019. The only amendment to the bill changed the effective date of it. HB 863 prohibits health care providers from referring patients to any hospital in…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel On April 2, 2019, the Senate passed their bill to expand the current state group health insurance mandate for enteral formulas out of its second committee. The bill was not amended and has one committee left. The House and Senate are taking different approaches this year on…
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…