Healthcare deregulation on fast track in Florida House

When House Speaker José Oliva gaveled in the new legislative session this week, he promised he would fight rising healthcare costs by pushing to deregulate the market — and several of his promised bills are starting to get their first approvals in committee stops. It’s typical for leadership priorities to be among the first to be heard in committees so they can reach the floor earliest during the 60-day legislative session and have the best chance of passing each chamber. More from the Tampa Bay Times and the Miami Herald.

See also:
» Calls intensify for repeal of Florida’s health-care provider ‘Certificate of Need’ process

Deadly deliveries: Some Florida hospitals face high rates of maternal complications

Maternal deaths have risen sharply between 1990 and 2015 in the United States even as they dropped elsewhere in the developed world. Florida hospital systems with the highest rates of serious complications include those in large metropolitan areas, such as Miami, Tampa and Jacksonville, and those in rural and Panhandle communities. [Source: Naples Daily News]

Husband-and-wife physicians create non-profit to train care workers in Haiti

Broward family physician Jennifer Goldman and her husband, Haiti-born emergency medicine physician Kissinger Goldman, volunteered regularly to fly to Haiti to provide medical help to the island’s residents. In the process, they saw limitations to the revolving-door approach used by the non-profits that serve the country. [Source: Florida Trend]

Health care dominates prison priorities

Florida Department of Corrections officials last week asked Senate criminal justice budget writers for $206 million to fund the agency’s priorities, which are heavily focused on providing inmates with health care as a result of litigation. Between the rising costs of medication and court orders regarding treatment of inmates with Hepatitis C and mental illness, 86 percent of the budget priorities have to do with providing health care to prisoners. [Source: WJXT]

Introducing OnMed: The first interactive telemedicine station to diagnose patients and dispense prescription meds in real time

OnMed®, an innovative health technology company whose OnMed Station allows patients a virtual life-sized consultation with a physician and automated pharmaceutical services, is today announcing the official launch of the station after six years of development. This is also the result of OnMed’s private equity funding, enabling the company to scale worldwide. [Source: Florida Trend]

ALSO AROUND FLORIDA:

› Hillsborough health plan expands eligibility, benefits [Health News Florida]
A health plan that provides care to low-income Hillsborough County residents is expanding to serve more people. The changes, approved by Hillsborough County commissioners, will increase the income level for eligibility, provide vision benefits and do away with a rule that disqualified residents who had three felony convictions.

› The Law: Retroactive Medicaid in Florida has been eliminated. Is that good or bad? [Lakeland Ledger]
Medicaid is a joint federal and state health insurance program that will help many people with limited income and resources pay for their health care. For those with disabilities or illness and no funds available to pay for care, Medicaid health insurance is often the only option available.

› If you need medical marijuana, you better not be in a Florida nursing home or ALF [Miami Herald]
Fears over losing Medicaid and Medicare funding — because federal law still considers all marijuana use illegal — keep most nursing homes and assisted living facilities pot-free, despite recommendations from doctors to card-holding patients who reside there.

› Bill addresses sexual misconduct at health care facilities [AP]
Florida could require every health care facility in the state to put in place a policy mandating employees report acts or suspected acts of sexual misconduct involving patients. The Senate Criminal Justice Committee unanimously approved a bill Monday that would make the sexual misconduct reporting policy a condition for licensure.