House committee forwards faculty physicians bill that would help All Children’s Hospital

A bill that would allow All Children’s Hospital to have 30 medical faculty certificates cleared its first House committee Wednesday.

The medical faculty certificate is a special designation which allows a physician to practice medicine without sitting for a licensure examination, though their practice is limited to the teaching hospital they are affiliated with and its related clinical facilities.

Though All Children’s was folded into the Johns Hopkins Health System in 2011, it hasn’t been granted any medical faculty certificates.

HB 209 would put the St. Petersburg hospital on even footing with seven Florida universities and the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville which already have certificates to employ medical faculty.

The bill was approved by the Health Quality Subcommittee with a unanimous vote and only a slight language tweak by bill sponsor and first-term Republican Rep. Alex Miller.

HB 209 now moves on to the Health & Human Services Committee.

The Senate version of the bill, SB 496 sponsored by St. Petersburg Republican Sen. Jeff Brandes, has yet to be heard in committee.