FMA-backed group targets lawmakers over looming fight with insurance companies

Amid a looming legislative food fight, fliers are being mailed to voters in select state House districts urging them to push their local legislator to support a contentious bill backed by the Florida Medical Association.

The flyers are drawing the ire of House Speaker Steve Crisafulli because he’s among legislators targeted by them. They have also reached voters in the district of Sen. Thad Altman.

One flier has an older woman with oxygen tubes up her nose. Across it in capital letters is the question “Why Won’t Tallahassee Politicians Help Me?”

Another shows a female doctor with her hand to her head and above her it reads: “Current Health Insurance Policies Prevent Doctors From Serving Their Patients.”

One of the fliers also shows a caregiver pushing a woman in a wheelchair. It reads in part: “We need policies that put patients first, not bureaucrats.”

“Do I take offense to it? Sure, I take offense to it,” Crisafulli said Wednesday, adding that the political attack was launched before the legislative session started. “To take that approach is not something that I see as being very effective … attacking people before they ever have a chance to have a conversation. And there were members who received those flyers in their districts that have not even heard this issue. So is it a flawed approach? Sure absolutely.”

The registered political committee — Better Florida Fund Corp. — sent the fliers. Florida Medical Association Executive Vice President Tim Stapleton is the registered agent for the political committee and campaign records show that FMA-affiliated groups have provided money to the group in the past.

Stapleton said the mailings were designed to frame the issue from the patient’s perspective and that the intent was to raise public awareness. A 75-member coalition of patients, health care professionals, and business organizations called Patient Access for Florida — which the FMA belongs to — also supports the cause.

Specifically, Patient Access for Florida would like the Legislature to pass SB 784 and HB 863, known as “The Right Medicine Right Time Act.” The bills would establish a seven-member Clinical Practices Review Commission charged with reviewing prior authorization, step therapy, or any other protocols that limit access to covered services, including diagnostic procedures, pharmaceutical services or  protocols,or  other therapeutic interventions.

The bills also would limit insurance companies from implementing any prior authorization or step therapy process that isn’t first approved by the government review commission. Insurance companies and HMOs would have to submit to the commission sufficient clinical evidence proving that the limitation wouldn’t harm the patient and the commission must agree.

Insurance companies that implement step therapy or prior authorization restrictions without prior approval could be sued for damages as well as economic damages. The proposal would allow the chief medical officer of the company to also be used.

The bills are sponsored by Sen. Don Gaetz and Rep. Shawn Harrison.

“There are very few issues in the Legislature that are life and death, but this is one opportunity for legislators to do something that will literally impact the lives of their constituents,” Stapleton said in an email when asked about the fliers. “The choice here is clear, on one side you have over 75 patient advocacy groups whose only concern is helping people get the medicine their personal doctor has recommended. On the other side you have big insurance companies whose main concern is making a profit for their shareholders.”

Here is one of the mailers: