The FMA's Office of the General Counsel (OGC) provides legal information to the Association and its members in areas such as medical records, subpoena compliance, balance billing and advertising. The OGC keeps active watch of issues from the Board of Medicine and Department of Health and others which impact our members.
The FMA is not permitted by law to render legal advice to individual members, and urges physicians to retain qualified counsel to provide guidance through the legal maze that is an unfortunate reality of today's medical practice.
Your FMA legal staff has been keeping a close eye on and actively participating in significant court cases which dramatically impact your profession and your practice. Recently, the Florida Supreme Court has issued opinions in 2 important cases: Lawnwood Medical Center v. Lawnwood Medical Staff and Florida Hospital Waterman, Inc. v. Teresa Buster (the challenge to Amendment 7). The Lawnwood ruling ensures that hospitals will pursue an appropriate balance between patient care interests and corporate interests by striking down a statute passed by the Florida Legislature in 2003 that eviscerated the rights, duties and responsibilities of physicians at the Lawnwood Regional Medical Center. In their ruling in Florida Hospital Waternman, Inc. v. Teresa Buster (the challenge to Amendment 7) the Florida Supreme Court found that a state constitutional amendment giving patients access to records related to adverse medical incidents applies retroactively and opens up related peer review documents created before amendment 7 passed via ballot measure in November 2004. To read more about each of these two important cases, please click on the links below.
Florida Hospital Waterman, Inc. v. Teresa Buster
Lawnwood Medical Center v. Lawnwood Medical Staff