The Florida Board of Chiropractic Medicine recently adopted new Rule language impacting continuing education; communication with patients and the Department of Health regarding your records upon retirement, moving, or closing a practice; and, the DC supervision of CCPAs.

1. Continuing Education (Rule 64B2-13.004): Effective May 3, 2023, several changes took place regarding CE courses and attendance:

• Challenge questions are no longer required for online courses.
• No CE course can be repeated for credit within the same biennium.
• Licensees will be able to take CE courses for credit in “imaging” technique which has been expanded from “x-ray” technique.
• Licensees will be able to take courses for credit in Practice Management and cost containment which has been defined as, “the development or mechanics of establishing and managing an office, including enhancement of patient care, insurance issues, and working with managed care programs. It does not include methods of increasing business profits, marketing of chiropractic services, investments, or financial management.”
• Recording attendance: A signed declaration statement of course completion from a licensee will be valid form of recording attendance, removing the requirement for signing in and out of classes. The licensee is required to retain course completion certificates for four years and is required to submit this documentation to the Board upon request.

2. Time limitations – Retention of Chiropractic Records (Rule 64B2-17.006): Effective 04/23/2023 impacts how patients and the Department of Health are informed of the new location of a patient’s medical records. In situations where you close a practice, put it in retired status, when a successor of a deceased DC takes over the practice or in situations where you move greater than 20 miles away, you are no longer required to notify patients (of last two years) of the location of your records via publication in a newspaper. You will now have the option of notifying patients and the Department of Health via electronic mail.

3. CCPA Rule Change (Rule 64B2-18.001) – Effective 2/19/2023: The number of CCPAs a chiropractic physician can supervise has increased from 2 to 10. In addition, the
supervising physician is no longer required to be within 30 minutes from the CCPA. The DC must be must be available to the CCPA either in person or by communication
devices.

The Florida Chiropractic Association represents its members at each of the quarterly Florida Board of Chiropractic Medicine meetings – just one of the valuable services provided by your membership support.

FCA members on health plan panels are receiving notices from the panel administrators announcing automatic inclusion in “PIP PPO panels” or an “Auto Liability Network.”  Participation in a “PIP PPO” type plan requires the doctor to accept the Plan’s fee schedule for services and possible utilization limits on PIP claims.  

On Monday, the First District Court of Appeal denied the Plaintiffs’ Motion for Rehearing in the PIP constitutional challenge lawsuit filed earlier this year.  As previously reported, the PIP injunction previously entered by Judge Lewis in Leon County, Tallahassee, Florida, was reversed by the First District Court of Appeal on October 23, 2013.  The Plaintiffs in that matter filed a Motion for Rehearing, asking the court to reconsider argument and to, in essence, change their opinion.  On Monday the Court, in a very brief, one sentence order, DENIED the request for rehearing.

Wednesday, November 6, 2013, Tallahassee – State lawmakers, back in Tallahassee this week for another round of committee meetings preparing for next spring’s legislative session, took time yesterday to once again discuss the future of Florida’s No-fault automobile insurance system.

On Tuesday, the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee met to hear some of the major stakeholders’ position on dumping Personal Injury Protection (“PIP”) as a mandatory coverage in the State of Florida, replacing it with Mandatory Bodily Injury (“BI”) coverage, to join the 48 other States in the U.S. that have mandatory BI in place.  

Yesterday Florida’s First District Court of Appeal released its opinion in McCarty v. Myers, No. 1D13-1355 (Fla. 1st DCA Oct. 23, 2013) on the constitutionality of the new PIP statute brought by health care providers and a fictitious “Jane Doe” Plaintiff.  The Court held that the plaintiffs did not have proper “standing” to proceed.  In other words, the court found that the “Jane Doe” plaintiff was not a proper party in interest with a case in controversy to proceed with the lawsuit.  The court reversed the temporary injunction of the new PIP statute which enjoined the Office of Insurance Regulation from imposing prohibitions on massage and acupuncture services and the $2,500 limitation for those patients deemed to have a non Emergency Medical Condition.  The Court reinstated the automatic stay of the injunction. 

What does this mean to your practice of automobile accident victims with PIP coverage?  

This morning a First District Court of Appeal three judge appellate panel heard oral arguments in the appeal by the Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR) of Judge Lewis’ order of temporary injunction issued on March 18, 2013 in Myers v. McCarty (as the Insurance Commissioner head of the OIR). The order of temporary injunction suspends enforcement of EMC requirement and the ban on billing for massage and acupuncture services.

Did you treat auto patients with Auto Club since January 1, 2008?  If so, please read about this class action settlement.  

A brief overview of the recent settlement in downloadable form is posted below. 

Find out:

* Who this applies to

* Dates of service that apply

* What is the recovery?

* What you need to do to recover

* Steps if you don't want to participate

* Whom to contact with questions

* What to do if you are currently represented by a PIP lawyer

      Following the June 27, 2013, favorable decision in Nunez v. Geico General Ins. Co. on pre-1/1/2008 policies not being able to require Examinations Under Oath as a condition precedent to PIP reimbursements (see FCA Bulletin of July 2, 2013), just one week later, the same 5-2 panel of Justices ruled again against Geico on the issue of whether or not auto insurers were required to incorporate the Medicare Fee Schedule into its policy of insurance if it wanted to take advantage of using it to pay providers.