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Exclusionary
Formulary Bill Passes!
UPDATE JUNE 1, 2001 ! Governor Jeb Bush
signed Senate Bill 666, the PA Exclusionary Formulary Bill into law on
May 31st, 2001. It becomes effective October 1st, 2001. *************************
Late
on May 3rd we received word from Pat
and Juhan Mixon of Mixon and Associates, FAPA Legislative Consultants, that
the Florida House of Representatives passed our bill changing the PA
formulary to one of a negative formulary status. The State Senate had passed
the bill earlier in the session. This is a great victory for the Florida
Academy of Physician Assistants. The bill now goes to Governor Bush for his
signature. The exclusionary formulary bill states that
those PAs with prescribing privileges will be able to prescribe any
medication except those specifically prohibited by the Formulary Committee
and the Boards of Medicine. The change will become effective on October 1,
2001. This means as new medications in classes of drugs that we can prescribe
now will no longer have to be approved before we can write for them. Those
medications that we will NOT be able to prescribe remain essentially the same
and include controlled substances, antipsychotics, general anesthetics,
radiographic contrast materiels, and all parenteral injections except for
insulin and epinephrine. Apparently there were some scary moments
toward the end when a Representative tried to tack on an amendment that would
have meant the the amended bill would have to go back to the Senate for
consideration again, but the amendment was defeated overwhelmingly and the
bill passed. This is a major victory for the PA profession as so far little health
care legislation has been actually passed. Representative Dennis Baxley of Ocala
sponsored the bill in the House and was the major reason for its' passage.
You can send him a "Thank You" email at:
Representative
Dennis Baxley On the Senate side, Senator Don Sullivan
of St. Petersburg sponsored the Senate corresponding bill and was
instrumental in getting it passed there.
You can send him a "Thank You" email at: Sullivan.don.web@leg.state.fl.us
Senator
Don Sullivan, M.D. You should download and print out the
photos of these two fine legislators for future reference. It is through the cooperative effort and
support of legislators such as these that help FAPA get the legislative
success that we have been able to do. Please send a "Thank You" email to these
folks as it will be beneficial to the PA profession and the Academy that many
of you do so. Also a big thanks to Pat and Juhan Mixon for their hard work in
securing passage of this bill. We owe them a great debt. We will post a complete legislative update later after the session actions are reviewed. |
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