I would like to start a website where the transcripts of the Florida O&P Board meetings are posted. The minutes don’t tell it all. The minutes don’t show how a Marrieta Lipomi from Buffalo NY was forced to travel to Tampa Florida to attend an “informal hearing” after her application for her Florida prsothetist license was denied.
She testified that she could not figure out why it was denied at her hearing on November 30th. The Board’s denial just quoted a statute (468.803(4),F.S, failure to demonstrate the three years of qualified experience) but did not
say exactly why she was denied. The Board member who reviewed the
application was in attendence and was asked to explain why he denied it. (All Board members had a copy of the complete application at the meeting.)
He said, “the statute requires you to have two recommendation letters attesting your three years of experience from ABC CP’s, you only have one” Ms. Lipomi said,”Turn the page” Guess what a second letter & signature for recommendation for Ms. Lipimo was always in her application. It was there all the time. The O&P Board missed it.
The Board member then quickly made a motion to License Ms. Lipimo which
passed in about two seconds. No apology, no I’m sorry for your expense of
leaving your NY practice and having to travel here because I didn’t turn the page. No offer to refund her lost wages and travel because we screwed up.
If you read just the posted minutes (when they get around to posting them, Nov. 1st isn’t posted yet.) you don’t get any of above reality. You just get a cleaned-up copy of what the Board wants you to see.
At the March 1st meeting where two applicants were fined $3000.00
(imagine going before the Board thinking you were there to just answer a few questions and then being blind sided about “practicing without a license”. Do you think they might have hired an attorney if they knew what was going to happen to them? Thats why these emails are important)
they were told that these fines were in line with Other Florida Board fines and they should consider themselves lucky. So I checked other Florida Board’s minutes over several meetings to see what they were charging for similar “crimes”.
Physical Therapists…no real money fines, just extra continuing education. You can all check these yourself on the web
Dentists…..a few $1000.00 fines plus some expenses
Massage therapists……$500.00 – $1000.00 fines
Optician…..$500.00 fine for writing scripts for Oxytocin to herself
MD’s…..mostly $5000.00…but chump change for them
These fines were for “crimes” far out weighing the O&P Boards applicants. Actually some were for illegal script writing, bad notes, even fraud. But all non MDs were fined less than $3000.00. Some were put on probation for a year as well. Too many to go into detail. So check yourself.
An interesting point. No other Board had applicants “practicing without a
license”. Do you think the Board should be handing out $3000.00 fines when
these poor applicants don’t know about the Law and even the Orthopedic Surgeons who employ them and have their own Florida Society and attys don’t even know! Do you think maybe in the last four years a letter should have been written by the Board to the Florida Orthopedic Society saying “we think the 1000 orthotechs you guys employ may just be breaking the law and their patients may not be covered by your mal-practice”
The Board was officially informed (check Clearwater meeting minutes) of the Orthotech problem 4 years ago. Yet, no action was ever taken by the Board to “protect patients from the unlicensed practice of orthotics” by these OrthoTechs until now. And this fine will never be paid because the OrthoTech doesn’t want the orthotic fitter license now that he really understands it’s limitations.
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