Gov. Jeb Bush recently signed a workers’ compensation bill designed to limit the cost of insuring Florida workers against injury and to boost the state’s economy. Among its reforms, the new law limits hourly attorney fees to medical-only cases and caps their amount, reduces hospital fee schedules, increases fraud penalties, further restricts exemptions from workers’ compensation coverage, and eliminates other inappropriate cost increase provisions.
The new law will help curb fraudulent claims, according to the Alliance of American Insurers. "It contains substantially all of the reform elements recommended by the Coalition of Business and Insurance Industry and an Alliance member-company task force," said William Stander, Southeast regional government affairs representative for the Alliance.
