After the state Department of Health called for revoking the doctor’s license, the Florida Board of Medicine this week issued a final order imposing a $10,000 fine and reprimanding a physician who did not comply in 2022 with a law requiring 24-hour waiting periods before abortions can be performed.
The order came after the board decided last month to approve penalties for physician Candace Sue Cooley that were less severe than what the Department of Health wanted.
The board, which is responsible for disciplining medical doctors, agreed with penalties recommended in September by Administrative Law Judge James H. Peterson III. The final order was posted Friday on the state Division of Administrative Hearings website.
The case stemmed from 193 abortions that Cooley, an obstetrician and gynecologist, performed at the Center of Orlando for Women clinic during a two-week period immediately after the waiting-period law took effect. The case went to the Division of Administrative Hearings as Cooley challenged a Department of Health complaint,
The Legislature passed the waiting-period requirement in 2015. It requires women to receive information from doctors about abortions and then wait at least 24 hours before having the procedures.
But the law did not take effect until after an April 2022 ruling by Leon County Circuit Judge Angela Dempsey in a long-running lawsuit.
In his recommendation, Peterson wrote, in part, that the Orlando clinic repeatedly sought information from the state Agency for Health Care Administration about when the waiting-period law would take effect after Dempsey’s ruling. Peterson said the agency did not provide information and that Cooley performed the abortions between April 26, 2022, and May 7, 2022 — after the law took effect April 25, 2022.
An Agency for Health Care Administration official informed the clinic of the law’s effective date during a May 11, 2022, inspection, and the agency issued a notice on June 9, 2022, about the effective date.
Peterson wrote that “the violation was unintentional and occurred despite reasonable efforts by the clinic and respondent (Cooley) to determine the effective date of the waiting period. Unlike the Department (of Health) and AHCA, neither respondent nor the clinic were parties to the litigation which occurred in Leon County, some 250 miles from the clinic. There was nothing readily accessible online about the final judgment having been issued on April 25, 2022. AHCA’s subsequent after-the-fact notice to providers on June 9, 2022, was insufficient to provide timely and effective information as to the effective date of the amended law.”
The judge also wrote that “the evidence indicates that no patients suffered physical harm as a result of respondent’s violation. While there was evidence that patients sometimes changed their mind (about having abortions) before the waiting period was law, there was no evidence showing that any patients were harmed by not having a 24-hour delay in receiving their abortion.”
But the Department of Health took exception to Peterson’s recommendation, saying Cooley’s license should be revoked.
“The ALJ’s (administrative law judge’s) recommended penalty is woefully inadequate to address the severity of the violation in this case and the potential for harm that it caused, or to deter respondent or other physicians from future violations,” the department argued in an Oct. 4 document filed with the Board of Medicine.
But the board rejected the argument about imposing a tougher penalty.
“Upon a complete review of the record in this case, the board determines that the penalty recommended by the administrative law judge is accepted,” the final order, dated Thursday, said.
In a story last month, the Florida Phoenix first reported that the board had decided to impose a $10,000 fine.
–Jim Saunders, News Service of Florida
R.S. says
That’s what we get when bureaucrats meddle into affairs that they are not competent in: Repression of people in the know by clowns who pander to an ignorant public.
Kat says
Am I the only one wondering why the Doctor was found at fault for anything? From the facts presented, it appears evident that the doctor and the clinic made good faith efforts to find out when the law was going into into affect . It also appears that the state was not very cooperative or proactive. None of this is surprising, but I still can’t understand how given these facts, a judgment was made against her.
As a provider, I get bulletins from the Florida Department of Health. They come in email form so I can’t say they’re not worth the paper they’re printed on, but they’re certainly not worth the screen time it takes to read them. People talk about news sources being biased, there is no room for bias when you are talking about people‘s health. And unfortunately, what they put out there cannot be trusted.
R.S. says
Seems to me that Florida operates by inducing fears. They did so when a few returning formerly incarcerated people voted. These folks were threatend with jail again. And if anyone knows anything at all about conditions in the Department of s0-called Corrections, one would understand the fear of returning into one of those hellholes on the part of returning citizens. The method works: scare the dickens out of one or two and you can bet on the others’ being kept from challenging Big Brother DeSantis.
Doug says
It appears that those pushing for a license revocation consider this doctor’s proficiency to be unseemly.
Regardless, it’s hard to believe anyone who reads the facts of the case would come away with any impression other than: she thought that she was legally doing her job.
If any notification to the contrary wasn’t available until June (despite the efforts of the hospital), how can any other conclusion be drawn?