Yesterday, HB 583 passed in the Florida House HHS Committee without including an “acupuncture physician” title exemption.
Please don’t despair, there are several very positive things that happened, which need explaining to help you understand the significance of your contribution and the meaning of today’s result.
Acupuncturists need to be celebrated for their enormous efforts over the past weeks. Getting an amendment added to HB 583 to protect Acupuncturists’ professional titles seemed near impossible a few weeks ago, but this morning in the 11th hour Rep. Marie Woodson from District 105 – Pembroke Pines, sponsored an amendment on behalf of Acupuncturists statewide. This was extremely courageous, as she faced a forceful and intimidating rejection from the bill’s sponsor.
Rep. Woodson did an expert job of making a great case for why the “acupuncture physician” title should be preserved. Other committee members joined in sharing their personal stories of experiencing life-changing outcomes and receiving high-quality professional care from acupuncturists. Public committee settings are not usually a place where you expect to hear personal details about legislators who passionately defended their conscience and vote, but it was on full display today.
- FSOMA wants to recognize and thank Mina Larson, CEO NCCAOM who traveled from D.C. on short notice to present and answer questions from the committee members. She provided important details about national training standards and described the particularly demanding licensure requirements in Florida. She stood for nearly 30 minutes taking questions from HB 583 sponsor Rep. Dr. Massullo, Rep. Woodson, Rep. Gantt, and Chairman Fine.
- We also need to recognize and thank Dr. Anaya Palay, DAOM, who took time away from her practice and patients to appear before the committee and speak about the negative impact title changes will have on the practices and professional reputations of Florida Acupuncturists.
- Gratitude is also owed to FSOMA’s state lobbyists Corinne Mixon and Angela Drzewiecki, together they have been instrumental in navigating for FSOMA and the profession, working to educate and communicate with committee members, culminating in efforts with Rep. Woodson to get the acupuncture amendment language filed early Monday. FSOMA is proud of their contributions, and they can be proud of their effort and achievements today.
During the Committee debate, Chairman Fine supported the acupuncture amendment and provided lots of intelligent input that focused on the importance of not creating laws that have a negative impact on how small business owners legally operate, basically espousing the legislative version of “First do no harm.” His assessment of the bill was that “HB 583 seemed to be a solution looking for a problem:” He repeatedly asked if there were consumer complaints or discipline cases involving Acupuncturists misleading consumers over the use of titles (of course not). The chairman and other members persisted that if no harm to the public exists, and acupuncture physician titling has been permitted in Florida for 20+ years, why do we need to adopt a change that only hurts the acupuncture profession?
This led to even more lively debate with the sponsor unable to explain his position except to say, “If acupuncturists want to be physicians, then they should go to medical school.” This finally communicated to everyone in the room something that the sponsor has been thinly concealing about HB 583. It is not about creating consumer protections or preventing practitioners from using misleading titles in their practice and advertising. No, instead the purpose of HB 583 is to create winners and losers within healthcare licensure. The sponsor provided no examples of consumer complaints, and he provided no examples of misleading advertising. Instead, he focused on details that support his desire to define the use of the term, “physician” based on the scope of practice and not based on the medical specialty or extent of a practitioner’s training.
Some legislators became visibly uncomfortable with that idea and continued making the point repeatedly that Acupuncturists using their well-established professional titles posed no threat to consumers. Ultimately, when the roll was called the committee produced a 9 to 9 bipartisan vote; and a tie fails, so the amendment DID NOT PASS. After supporting the amendment with a “yes vote,” Chairman Fine concluded his comments about HB 583 saying, “Although the amendment failed, and the HB 583 passed in the committee [without “acupuncture physician” included], this bill faces a pretty uncertain future in the House.”
We have no crystal ball to know for sure if Chairman Fine is correct, so it remains priority NUMBER ONE for FSOMA, its members, the profession at-large and all stakeholders to press-on with reaching out to legislators to educate them about the harm and expense that HB 583 poses to this profession. We will use the remaining weeks of the 2023 Session to update all of you on how HB 583 progresses and any other developments. The strategy at this point needs to shift away from focusing on individual legislators based on their committee assignments, and now we want you to contact your local State Rep as a constituent, member of the community and small business owner, whose reputation and business will be harmed by HB 583. They need to know and understand how HB 583 will negatively affect residents and business owners in their district so that they are better informed about how to protect constituents in their community.
I know today’s vote didn’t go the way we wanted, but HB 583 and Rep. Dr. Ralph Massullo had a far worse day. The amendment failed under a 9/9 tie, and HB 583 passed 15/3 in committee. This is a loud and clear message that Rep. Dr. Massullo is out-of-step with his colleagues, and he is losing support for HB 583. This is good news for the Florida acupuncture profession because we will continue efforts to further educate and bring more legislators to support our position ahead of a floor vote in the House – if HB 583 makes it that far.
In closing, FSOMA and its Gov’t Affairs team can’t achieve success for the profession working alone. The only reason Rep. Dr. Massullo didn’t have an easy day at the office, pushing HB 583 forward effortlessly, is because this profession was relentless. Your emails and calls inspired legislators to rally to our cause, share their stories, cross the aisle, and vote their conscience. Do you have any idea how rare that is in politics these days? It’s a miracle, like a unicorn sighting…everyone on the committee, everyone in the gallery, and everyone in the capital was spellbound by what you were able to achieve…this was a remarkable effort and a remarkable day only made possible by your action.
Stay tuned – I’ll have additional guidance later this week. Take time to decompress. Thank you.