2012 Medical Malpractice Changes: Effect So Far

Florida’s medical malpractice law is unique. Before beginning any medical malpractice case, we must obtain an affidavit from a quailifed expert stating that malpractice ocurred. With the affidavit in hand and notification to the other side, we can then intitiate Florida’s 3 month medical malpractice pre-suit screening procedure. This 3 month procedure must be completed before any lawsuit can be filed and started in the courtroom. Florida has no such restriction in other negligence cases such as auto, trucking, product liability, or aviation cases.

While this procedure has been in place in Florida for more than a decade, it has been tweeked here and there over the years. The biggest change in 2012 requires out-of-state experts (for both plaintiff and defense) to register with the Florida Board of Medicine and obtain an expert witness certificate. At PDM, our out-of-state experts have not feared registering in Florida. We believe that this is so because we work with legitmate, credible, well-trained experts who are not afraid to speak out when a wrong has been committed. In 2012, Florida has granted an expert certificate to every one of our experts with whom we have had the honor or work with. And none of the experts has feared submitting their credentials to the Florida Department of Medicine.