This year the Florida Department of Health celebrated 125 years of public health and has seen remarkable successes in a variety of areas. The Department’s Division of Medical Quality Assurance (MQA) plays an integral role in this success as it strives to become the leader in health care quality regulation while helping Florida become the healthiest state in the nation. MQA regulates 41 different professions under more than 100 different types of licenses and in conjunction with 22 boards and eight councils; the Division regulates and disciplines health care providers for the Department. Better and faster processes are always a goal, so MQA reviews and revises its business practices regularly while keeping good health care providers on the job and stopping unlicensed and dangerous people from practicing health care.

More than 1.1 million health care practitioners and health care facilities are currently licensed by the Department of Health through its Medical Quality Assurance division.

• 213,000 of them are Registered Nurses—the largest profession group
• 2,100 are active military members

Many people reported health care practice by unlicensed providers in the past year and MQA checked out every one.

• 231 received cease and desist orders
• 296 cases were referred to law enforcement

With the added option of paying online with a credit card, MQA dropped license renewal from almost four days to six hours.

• 92 percent of licensees renew online

Check to see if your provider is properly licensed in the state of Florida and whether he or she has been disciplined by running a search at our website: FlHealthSource.gov.

Much more information is shared in the MQA Annual Report which was just released. You can read it at: http://mqawebteam.com/annualreports/1314/.