More background checks for FL healthcare workers? A physician lawmaker calls them humiliating

More background checks for FL healthcare workers? A physician lawmaker calls them humiliating

Republican Rep. Joel Rudman, a family medicine physician in the Panhandle, voted against a proposal to expand background checks to all healthcare workers, calling his experience going through the process humiliating. He was the only one who voted against the bipartisan bill.

Some healthcare workers such as physicians, nurses and massage therapists have to undergo a criminal background screening to get their license. But Republican Rep. Dana Trabulsy, representing part of St. Lucie County, and Democratic Rep. Allison Tant, or North Florida, want to make that a requirement for all healthcare workers before licensure, including dietitians, dentists and optometrists. Those workers, and more, relate to legislation called HB 975.

List of healthcare workers who currently undergo background screenings to get a license. (Screenshot from Health Regulation Subcommittee Staff Analysis)

In the Senate, Republican Erin Grall is sponsoring the bill, SB 1008.

The background screening would require healthcare workers applying for a license to submit their fingerprints to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The FBI would also have to process the fingerprints.

License applicants must pay for these services, which costs $50.75. The proposal would also apply retroactively, meaning that those who are already practicing in their fields would have to get screened before July 2025.

But they couldn’t convince Rudman to support it.

“It’s probably the most humiliating process I’ve ever been involved in as a medical doctor. I got into this field to help people not to have my fingerprints loaded up into a database,” he said during the House Healthcare Regulation Subcommittee meeting on Wednesday morning.

He continued: “Just because we live in a state where doctors have to be submitted to that kind of treatment, I would never ever want to impose that kind of embarrassment on my dentist, on my optometrist, on my physical therapist.”

Other representatives in the subcommittee said they also had to get their fingerprints taken to volunteer in schools but they didn’t mind.

“We were required to do fingerprinting, and I did not find it embarrassing. I was actually really glad that the school required that of all the volunteers who came in contact with the children in order to make sure we were providing the safest environment possible,” said Rep. Christine Hunschofsky of Broward County. “I think this is a wonderful bill, like Representative Tant, I’m shocked that it’s not already required.”

The post More background checks for FL healthcare workers? A physician lawmaker calls them humiliating first appeared on Daily Florida Press.

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