The 2018 Florida Legislative Session is over and nothing has changed for us – again!
The SCMHR filed a bill that would have taken our Electrolysis Council (voice) away from us, placed us under the Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR), and forced us all to be certified if we wanted to operate a hair removal laser in our practice. That was later changed to keep us under the Department of Health, but still eliminated our Electrolysis Council and would have put the CME requirement in stone.
Our lobbyist, Larry Gonzalez, did a great job defending us. He drafted an amendment which the SCMHR accepted that would have allowed us to be supervised by a PA or ARNP, but the Florida Medical Association (FMA) stepped in and convinced the legislators that this would “expand the scope of practice” for us so they dropped it. I thought that our scope of practice was hair removal – not supervision!
At that point, what we had was the original bill which was moving through the system! YIKES! That bill finally died in the Rules Committee when it was not heard. So…… as stated above, nothing has changed for us. We didn’t gain anything, but we didn’t lose anything.