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(USGovernment-News.Com, June 07, 2013 ) London, UK -- For physicians in the state of Florida, the new malpractice reform has come as a pleasant victory. Florida lawmakers recently approved a lengthy series of tort reform that will, among many other alterations, require expert witnesses must possess the same specialty as the defending physicians during malpractice suits.
The expert witnesses must be specialists within the same field as the doctor who is involved in the suit, and will have to find the errors or negligence of the physicians directly correlating to the subsequent ill effects in order for the malpractice suit to hold water.
The Florida House of Representatives passed the measures by a 77-38 margin. The legislation had started in the Senate Judiciary Committee before making its way into the House. The bill looked to affect several areas of the law that proponents of the changes that currently exposed physicians to unnecessarily high medical malpractice costs.
FMA General Counsel Jeff Scott stated that the changes were necessary so that those in the field had the proper legal rights when attempting to defend themselves.
“It is important that we promote the highest standard of medical care our state has to offer by holding bad actors responsible for their actions,” he said in a statement.
The Florida Chamber praised lawmakers and the FMA on the bill’s passage. “We congratulate the FMA on this victory,” said David Hart, executive vice president of the Florida Chamber. “This bill aims to make Florida’s legal environment more friendly for physicians.”
A further provision found in the legislation provides requirements for expert witnesses to be within the same field as the defending physician. Before the reform, an expert witness could be from a parallel or generally similar specialty. At that time, it was simply up to the board authority to decide what it was that constituted a similar specialty
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