Tag Archives: Healthcare

According to Health News Florida, there are 29 Florida doctors operating with clear medical licenses although they have at least six malpractice complaints against them that have resulted in insurance payments since 2000. These doctors are continuing to practice without discipline from the state system that oversees them, which means either insurers paid to settle the cases that had no merit or the state hasn’t always followed up.

Critics say Florida’s system is broken and it’s putting people’s lives at risk. Dr. Sidney Wolfe, founder of the Public Citizen Health Research Group, based in Washington D.C has studied medical discipline nationwide for decades and says Florida’s Board of Medicine must intervene.

Patients and their families can also file a complaint with the state’s regulatory agencies, although the odds are stacked against them. 6,713 complaints and reports were filed with the Department of Health from 2015-2016. Only about 15 percent or 1,018 of them were found “legally sufficient.” Of those, 762 were taken to a probable cause panel, and three-fourths were rejected. The 188 administrative complaints filed that year represent less than 3 percent of the number of complaints and reports that came in.

In some cases involving doctors with multiple claims, records show the Department of Health received early warnings, but took little or no action. One of those cases was that of Dr. Michael Rosin, a Sarasota dermatologist who was convicted in March 2006 of defrauding Medicare of more than $3 million in a scheme that dated back more than a decade. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison and ordered to pay millions of dollars in restitution. After his criminal conviction, the Department of Health revoked his license, according to state records. Federal records show that Rosin, now 66, is at Otisville Federal Correctional Institution in Otisville, N.Y. He is scheduled for release in 2025.

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