Opinion: Florida physician shortage to deepen if protections removed

For years, health care organizations have issued warnings about Florida’s impending physician shortage and the urgent need to pursue policies that ensure access to medical care for the state’s growing population. Given the sobering outlook – a projected shortfall of nearly 18,000 physicians in Florida by 2035, according to a widely cited report conducted by IHS Markit – it is alarming that state lawmakers are considering legislation that would deepen this crisis.

House Bill 6017 and its companion, Senate Bill 734, would repeal Florida’s longstanding restriction on medical malpractice claims related to adult children and parents of deceased children over the age of 25. Under current state law, a child who is 25 or older cannot seek non-economic damages in the case of a parent’s death due to medical remiss. The same limitation on non-economic damages applies to a surviving parent in a case where a child 25 or older dies due to medical remiss.

Every physician operates under a code of ethics that we swear to uphold after completing our training. This oath is not taken lightly. Fair compensation and accountability are necessary in actual cases of substandard care that result in a patient’s death. However, HB 6017 and SB 734 would do nothing to increase the quality of medical care in Florida or bolster the accountability mechanisms for physicians that already exist.

What this legislation would do is increase health care costs, make Florida a less attractive place for future physicians to practice, potentially drive good doctors to retire early and/or leave the state, and create needless obstacles for Floridians seeking medical care.

Florida already has the highest medical malpractice insurance rates in the country, and there have been a notable number of “nuclear” verdicts fueled by large non-economic damages awards. Expanding liability for non-economic damages in medical malpractice lawsuits is a surefire way to exacerbate this problem, and patients will feel the effects.

When professional liability insurance costs increase, many doctors may stop providing services with higher levels of risk, such as delivering babies. In 2023, 21 percent of OB/GYNs who responded to a Florida Department of Health survey reported that they planned to stop providing obstetric care within two years.

Liability exposure and high medical malpractice litigation were among the most frequently selected reasons. In this environment, it is little wonder that physicians often feel compelled to practice defensively by ordering additional tests or confirming consultations for fear of malpractice lawsuits. The American Medical Association has estimated that defensive medicine costs the U.S. $15 billion each year in health care expenditures – costs that are passed along to insurers and, ultimately, patients.

Florida’s current limits on non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases are not unusual or inconsistent with provisions in many other states. As noted by the Florida Justice Reform Institute, “generally speaking, there are at least 10 states where ultimately an adult child or parent of an adult child would not be able to recover non-economic damages like mental distress, often because that state bars any type of mental distress recovery by survivors in wrongful death actions.”

The last thing our state needs is legislation that would destabilize our health care system, increase the cost of care, and dim Florida’s prospects for attracting and retaining the physicians our communities need.