FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 30, 2013

Contact: Communications Office
(850) 245-4111

TALLAHASSEE—The Department of Health (DOH), Division of Medical Quality Assurance (MQA) improved the license renewal process for more than 1 million health care practitioners opting to renew online using a credit card. Historically licensees waited an average of 3.7 days for their license record to reflect the new expiration date and for a new license to be printed and mailed. This delay potentially limited their ability to work. The new and improved renewal process approves their license renewal application and updates their public license record in just one hour—a 94 percent improvement that keeps health care providers at work to provide continuous health care to the people of Florida.

“In increasing the efficiency of licensure renewal, our Division of Medical Quality Assurance has made Florida’s health care environment more stable for both practitioners and patients,” said state Surgeon General and Secretary of Health Dr. John Armstrong. “This reduction in payment processing time not only makes the process more convenient for licensees, but guarantees Floridians continuity of vital health care services.”

Not only does the credit card processing improvement improve the renewal of health care licenses, it will also improve the speed with which new applications using credit cards are processed. That means doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and members of the other 40 health care professions can get to work faster. “We conducted an analysis of wages earned by some of our largest professions and discovered that, if we can license doctors just one day faster, that represents $953,486 into Florida’s economy”, said J. Martin Stubblefield, Deputy Secretary for Administration.

The improvement project was completed three months ahead of its scheduled launch date of October 1, 2013. By visiting http://ww2.doh.state.fl.us/IRM00PRAES/PRASLIST.ASP, the public may verify the status of a practitioner’s license.

DOH protects, promotes and improves the health of all people in Florida through integrated state, county and community efforts.

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