May 8, 2017
Dear Colleagues,
Thank you.
Legislative News
HB 1037 will likely be heard in the House Health and Human Services Committee on Thursday, April 20. We are encouraging members to write their legislators and ask their patients to do so as well to tell them to VOTE NO against HB 1037. Click here to write to your legislator.
Dr. Adam Katz, President of the Florida Society of Ophthalmology today released the following statement after HB 1037 passed out of the Health Quality Subcommittee.
Dear Ophthalmology Colleagues,
Statement by Adam Katz, MD, President of the FSO, on the Filing of Optometric Surgery Bill (SB 1168)
"This proposed legislation puts the health and well-being of millions of Floridians at risk. This bill would grant broad and unprecedented surgical privileges to optometrists who are not medical doctors, never attended medical school, and who are certainly not adequately trained to perform scalpel surgery, laser surgery, or prescribe narcotics.
The first annual Florida Society of Ophthalmology (FSO) Leadership Luncheon was held in conjunction with the Masters in Ophthalmology 2011 Annual Meeting on Saturday, June 25, 2011 at The Breakers in Palm Beach. The Luncheon was very well attended by an interested and enthusiastic group.
The American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) has joined a coalition of other medical associations in an American Medical Association (AMA) grassroots campaign calling for a permanent Medicare physician pay fix. The coalition is advocating for repeal of the sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula that is used to update Medicare physician pay. Physicians are scheduled for a 30 percent Medicare pay cut on Jan. 1, unless Congress intervenes.
The American Medical Association has filed an amicus brief urging the Florida Supreme Court to uphold the state's limit on subjective awards for noneconomic damages.
The AMA, in a brief filed Thursday, joined other organizations representing Florida physicians, hospitals, small business owners and their insurers to ask the Court to preserve patients' access to more affordable medical care.
In a letter sent to members of the Joint Congressional Committee on Deficit Reduction last week, the AMA and 116 state and specialty medical societies asked the committee to include repeal of Medicare's flawed payment formula, the sustainable growth rate (SGR), in its spending plan.
The 2012 Legislative Session will start in just a few short weeks. The session is convening two months early on Tuesday, January 10, 2012, and will last for 60 days due to the Special Reapportionment Session that occurs every 10 years to redraw legislative and congressional district lines.
