Florida Legislative Update
Bills that impact health care professionals.
As always, this year’s Florida Legislative Session included a variety of bills that addressed health care professionals, their training, licensure and scope of practice issues. Most new laws in Florida take effect July 1st. We’ve summarized of some of the main bills that impacted professionals below.
HB 1427 – Designed to improve nursing education
HB 1427 establishes new requirements for nursing education programs to be approved by the Board of Nursing, including the adoption of standardized evaluation and admission criteria, a comprehensive exit exam, and a remediation program. It reduces the time an approved nursing education program can fail to meet statutory requirements before being placed on probation from two years to one year. It requires the Board of Nursing to terminate a program for failing to adhere to the annual reporting requirements. Department of Health staff are authorized to conduct on-site inspections of nursing education programs to assess compliance with requirements. Nursing program directors are required to submit a remediation plan if a program fails to meet the required graduate passage rates. A nursing education program on probationary status must offer remediation at no additional cost to students for their exit examination or preparation course. If a program's graduate passage rate is below 30 percent, the program must reimburse tuition and fees for each student who failed to pass the National Council of State Boards of Nursing Licensing Examination as a first-time test taker.
HB 1299 – Department of Health bill addressing licensure by endorsement
HB 1299 helps further the goal of increasing access to care. The bill reduced the active practice requirement for licensure by endorsement from three years to two and allows licensure for applicants with a National Practitioner Data Bank report if the conduct that occasioned the reported adverse action would not have violated any statute or rule in Florida. The bill also allows newly licensed residents in other states currently excluded from Florida licensure to qualify for licensure by endorsement.
HB 519 and HB 647 – Scope of practice bills
HB 519 will allow health care practitioners to authorize a certified paramedic, under their direction and supervision, to administer a controlled substance in the course of providing emergency services.
HB 647 gives APRNs and PAs the authority to sign death certificates.
SB 7012 – Child welfare reforms addressing programs at the Department of Children and Families (DCF)
SB 7012 addresses child welfare workforce issues by requiring DCF to create a Child Protective Investigator and case manager recruitment program and convene a case management workforce workgroup composed to address current policy gaps and develop actionable recommendations. It also creates a four-year pilot program for treatment foster care and enhances the data and information related to commercial sexual exploitation of children that the state must collect and report. The pilot program would introduce a short-term, family-like placement option for children in foster care that have high resource indicators or children that are stepping down from a placement in an inpatient residential treatment.
The Florida Legislature has adjourned but will begin committee meetings in the fall. To learn more about these bills and the legislative process, you can go to the House and Senate websites. In addition, many state professional associations produce end-of-session summaries. For more information, please contact your elected officials.