The Florida House has passed a healthcare package that, as nicely summarized by The Miami Herald:
- Sets rules for telemedicine that let out-of-state physicians use technology to serve patients in Florida.
- Lets people contract directly with physicians to pay for primary care without involving insurance companies. Those choosing this option would still need to have some health coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
- Giving advanced registered nurse practitioners and physicians’ assistants the right to prescribe narcotics and other drugs.
- Creating new recovery centers that can care for patients for 72 hours after surgery and extending the time that patients can stay at ambulatory surgical centers to 24 hours.
- Sets sweeping price-transparency requirements to ease patients’ shopping for non-emergency coverage.
- Creates new recovery centers that can care for patients for 72 hours after surgery and extends the time patients can stay at ambulatory surgical centers to 24 hours.
- Seeks to to protect consumers from “balance billing,” in which physicians directly bill patients for services not covered by insurance, which often happens when hospitals contract with outside physicians.
