By George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M., Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law
In 1997, the Florida Legislature passed a statute that requires the Department of Health (DOH) maintain online practitioner profiles for certain health care professionals. Practitioner profiles are required for medical doctors, osteopathic physicians (DOs), chiropractors (DCs), advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) and podiatric physicians. The statute specified the required information to be maintained, how it was to be reported, and other requirements dealing with compiling and updating the information in the profiles.
To visit the DOH’s website and learn more about these profiles, click here.
What Information Does the Practitioner Profile Include?
The profile contains required and optional information from the healthcare provider. Required
information includes:
1. education and training, including other health-related degrees, professional and post graduate training specialty
2. current practice and mailing addresses
3. staff privileges and faculty appointments
4. reported financial responsibility
5. legal actions taken against the practitioner
6. board final disciplinary action taken against the practitioner
7. any liability claims filed against podiatric physicians which exceed $5,000
8. any liability claims filed against M.D.s and osteopathic physicians which exceed
$100,000
Optional information may include committees/memberships, professional or community
service awards, and publications the practitioner has authored.
These profiles are published on the DOH’s website. They are freely accessible by the public and are frequently used by employers, medical staff committees, and insurance panels to verify information provided by applicants.
Be Sure to Check Your Own Profile for Accuracy.
If you are a licenced profiled health care practitioner, you should review your profile information frequently and report any corrections to the DOH immediately! By law, you are responsible for updating your profile information within 15 days after a change of an occurrence in each section of the profile.
Unfortunately, information on practitioner profiles is not always 100 percent correct. Oftentimes, the information in a profile is outdated or misreported. The majority of the information in a profile is supposed to be entered through the website by the practitioner personally; however, the DOH is free to add information on its own.
It’s important to note that not all of the information on the practitioner profile is verified by the DOH. To view which information is self-reported, as well as reported by the DOH, click here to view the DOH’s profile guide.
Recently, The Health Law Firm had a client whose employment contract was not renewed due to misreported criminal history information on the DOH practitioner profile. Most troubling was the fact that this information appeared on the profile suddenly; it had not been on the practitioner profile in the past. Furthermore, the information was decades old and had been posted in direct violation of a court order sealing the underlying records.
We have also had cases where information was incorrect, where the same information was repeated several times, or where the information on the profile did not meet basic requirements for reporting.
Fight Misreported Information on Your Practitioner Profile.
The Health Law Firm has been successful in having the DOH remove criminal history information and other incorrect information from a practitioner profile.
It is imperative that you check your practitioner profile regularly to ensure that it is accurate with respect to the information that you provided and that may have been provided by the DOH. If you find that confidential or incorrect information has been posted to your profile, contact an attorney experienced with dealing with these matters immediately. You never know when your employer, a business associate or potential patient will look up your information on your profile.
Contact Health Law Attorneys Experienced with Department of Health Matters and Investigations.
At the Health Law Firm we provide legal services for all health care providers and professionals. This includes physicians, nurses, dentists, psychologists, psychiatrists, mental health counselors, Durable Medical Equipment (DME) suppliers, medical students and interns, chiropractors, hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers, pain management clinics, nursing homes and any other health care provider
Our attorneys provide legal representation in Department of Health (DOH) investigations, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) investigations, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigations and other types of investigations of health professionals and providers.
To contact The Health Law Firm, please call (407) 331-6620 or (850) 439-1001 and visit our website at www.TheHealthLawFirm.com.
About the Author: George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M., is Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law. He is the President and Managing Partner of The Health Law Firm, which has a national practice. Its main office is in the Orlando, Florida, area. www.TheHealthLawFirm.com The Health Law Firm, 1101 Douglas Ave., Altamonte Springs, FL 32714, Phone: (407) 331-6620.
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