Report warns loosening vaccine requirements could cost Florida $9B
A new economic analysis examining the long-term fiscal impact of reducing Florida’s childhood vaccine requirements projects significant losses to the state’s economy, workforce, and tax base over the next decade. The report, prepared by the Regional Economic Consulting Group, founded by two former senior state economists, estimates that weakening school-entry vaccine safeguards could reduce Florida’s gross domestic product by $9 billion, eliminate 64,644 jobs, and cut state and local tax revenues by nearly $1 billion over ten years. [Source: Florida Politics]
Prenatal care gaps widen in Florida amid access and policy challenges
Florida is moving in the wrong direction on prenatal care and climbing the national rankings for all the wrong reasons. The share of Florida mothers receiving late or no prenatal care jumped 25% between 2021 and 2024, rising to 11.4%, tied with Georgia for the third-highest rate in the country, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Only Hawaii (12.8%) and New Mexico (11.7%) fared worse. [Source: WUSF]
Opinion: Florida’s current primary care model needs to be reimagined
Florida’s healthcare challenges are often discussed in terms of shortages, insurance barriers, and burnout. Beneath all that lies a more fundamental problem: the way we deliver care in primary care offices is no longer serving patients or providers well. The traditional one-patient-at-a-time, 10-to 15-minute visit model was never designed for the realities facing primary care today. Chronic disease, mental health conditions, obesity, diabetes, and multimorbidity require education, behavior change, coordination, and follow-up. [Source: Tallahassee Democrat]
Medicaid managed care plans could see reductions
Is it a clarification or a cut? For the first time since the inception of the state’s mandatory Medicaid managed care program, there’s a move in the Legislature to reduce payments to the contracted plans that provide the care. The House’s proposed health care budget includes a 1.3% “efficiency” savings, or a $206.2 million reduction to the managed care plans for the coming state fiscal year that starts in July. Rep. Alex Andrade, the Pensacola Republican who chairs the House Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee, told the Florida Phoenix this week that the reduction represented a “clarification.” [Source: Florida Phoenix]
Nearly 10% of Florida's home health agencies earn U.S. News' top-performer rating
A new report found that Florida is home to more than 100 of the nation’s “best” home health agencies, which provide a range of skilled nursing care, therapies, instruction and medications to patients, often after a hospitalization. The increasing demand for those services was the impetus to U.S. News & World Report’s first-ever Best Home Health rankings, which were released Tuesday. [Source: Health News Florida]
ALSO AROUND FLORIDA:
› UF Health to shift 299 jobs to outside firm across 4 hospitals
University of Florida Health has announced it will shift 299 nutrition and food service jobs to a third-party firm, restructuring operations across four hospitals. The UF-affiliated health system announced in a Feb. 18 Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act letter that May 1 it would be shutting down its internal dietary services operations and transitioning to external operations with Morrison Healthcare. The move would affect the UF Health Leesburg Hospital, the UF Health Spanish Plaines Hospital in The Villages, the UF Health Shands Hospital and the UF Health Psychiatric Hospital in Gainesville.
› Cleveland Clinic will start building its West Palm Beach hospital
Cleveland Clinic has attracted enough money in private donations to start building a hospital in West Palm Beach in early 2027, according to Dr. Conor Delaney, president of Cleveland Clinic Florida. In fact, by the third quarter of this year, an old office building on the hospital property will be torn down and the site will be cleared, he said. The Cleveland Clinic hospital will create the first not-for-profit research hospital in the city, and the first new hospital downtown in more than 100 years.
› How Tampa Bay doctors are fighting Florida’s maternity care deserts
A new maternity care report found less than 33 percent of rural hospitals in Florida provide maternity care. More than 120 rural hospitals nationwide have closed since 2020, and it does not help the maternity care desert that exists. Tampa Bay area doctors said they work to provide care through telehealth and mobile health.
› Broward revives free heart screening offer to thousands of residents
Broward County has resumed making appointments for free heart screenings that have already saved thousands of lives. The Broward Heart Project pilot program ran from 2023 through 2025 and provided free tests for anyone between 45 and 70 with at least one qualifying condition: high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, a history of smoking or a family history of heart disease. More than 7,000 people were tested. Over 4,000 had heart conditions requiring immediate treatment and, in some cases, surgery.