Unless you’ve gone on complete media blackout, you are likely aware there is an upcoming election. With early voting possibly underway by the time you are reading this, and mail-in voting ongoing, we can really think of this as an election season instead of just election day on November 3. As emergency physicians, the issues important to us and our patients transcend party lines, and no matter your political views or those of your representatives, I encourage each of you to advocate and contact your legislators regularly about the issues important to emergency medicine. We cannot expect to have an effect on the outcome by simply standing on the sidelines.

At FCEP, your political committees have been working hard to support pro-medicine candidates up and down the ballots across the state on both sides of the aisle. This next session will begin a new era of leadership in Tallahassee with the new Speaker of the House, Chris Sprowls, and a likely new Senate President, Wilton Simpson. We will also likely see a major focus on budgetary changes given the drastic changes to Florida’s economy that have occurred due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Finally, we are working to put together an “Insurance Summit” with other state-level specialty groups to highlight insurers behaving badly and not appropriately reimbursing emergency care in the state of Florida. Multiple other medical groups have already signed on, and I encourage any of you who are having problems with insurers refusing to appropriately reimburse emergency care to reach out to us at FCEP and let us know.

Remember to vote this season as we continue to advocate for pro-medicine candidates and educate those in power on the issues important to emergency physicians. If you are able, I encourage you to donate to the FCEP PAC so that we can continue being your unified voice throughout the state. ■