News Service of Florida

State Surgeon General Celeste Philip issued an emergency order Monday that allows certain out-of-state health care professionals to provide services in Florida for another 30 days. 

A Winter Springs company has filed the latest in a series of legal challenges arguing that the state is violating a 2016 constitutional amendment that broadly legalized medical marijuana. 

On the eve of mid-term elections where health care is a top issue with voters, a board led by Florida Insurance Commissioner David Altmaier sidestepped voting Monday on a number of consumer-protection issues. 

Following a state administrative judge’s lead, the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration issued a pair of final orders this week denying a plan by Nemours Children’s Hospital to establish two transplant programs in Orlando. 

An appeals court Wednesday ruled that an insurer shouldn’t have to pay a claim under a workers’ compensation insurance policy that was written hours after a piece of heavy machinery ran over a construction worker’s foot. 

MCNA Dental, a managed-care company that was recently awarded a five-year Medicaid contract, has hired former Florida Healthy Kids Corp. director Rose Naff as its vice president of operations. 

Throughout the summer, politicians heard from Floridians angered by the latest bouts of toxic blue-green algae in the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers, along with a festering red-tide outbreak on the Gulf Coast.

State regulators moved quickly Tuesday to approve the suspension of monthly electric bills for customers of two utilities in areas hit hard by Hurricane Michael. 

The Florida Public Service Commission on Monday gave a key approval to a Tampa Electric Co. plan that will add five solar-energy projects in Hillsborough and Polk counties. 

The number of cases of the mosquito-borne Zika virus continued to gradually increase last week, with new cases reported in Collier, Palm Beach and Orange counties, according to the state Department of Health website. 

A political committee raised $7.75 million during a week-long period as it tries to defeat a proposed constitutional amendment that could make it harder to expand gambling in Florida, according to a newly filed finance report. 

Massachusetts House Speaker Robert DeLeo, Boston Police Commissioner William Gross and Massachusetts Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders are among the public officials who plan to unveil a billboard next week in Boston that will contrast Massachusetts gun laws with those in Florida. 

With most of the cases concentrated in Southwest and Southeast Florida, the state has received reports of at least 84 cases of the mosquito-borne Zika virus this year, according to the Florida Department of Health website. 

An administrative law judge Tuesday agreed to give attorneys for the state and Lighthouse Health Plan another two weeks to try to settle a dispute about a patient-assignment policy for Medicaid beneficiaries in Northwest Florida.

Lighthouse Health Plan attorney Edward Philpot told Judge Robert Telfer III that the parties are working toward an agreement, and “indications appear good that we are on the right track.”

The Florida Healthy Kids Corp. Board of Directors on Thursday approved a plan to waive children’s health-insurance premiums for three months in counties that sustained heavy damage in Hurricane Michael. 

The Florida Healthy Kids Corp. Board of Directors is expected Thursday to consider waiving children’s health-insurance premiums for three months in a dozen counties slammed last week by Hurricane Michael.

Pointing to a need to stay focused on the aftermath of Hurricane Michael, the state Office of Insurance Regulation has canceled a public hearing slated for Wednesday on a proposed reduction in workers’ compensation insurance rates. 

The number of reported Zika cases in Florida this year has increased to 80, while a baby has been born with a condition known as congenital Zika syndrome, according to newly updated information from the state Department of Health. 

More than 30 health-care facilities had to be evacuated as Hurricane Michael damaged buildings and knocked out electricity in the Panhandle, state emergency management officials said Friday.

A year after Hurricane Irma ravaged Florida’s citrus industry, growers are on pace to slightly surpass their production from two years ago.

With Hurricane Michael expected to blast Florida this week, Gov. Rick Scott on Monday expanded a state of emergency to include 35 counties and asked President Donald Trump for a declaration that would help provide federal assistance. 

The federal government is changing rules about how it helps with treatment for substance-abuse disorders, including requiring screening new Medicare beneficiaries for opioid abuse.

In a case being watched by local governments across the state, the Florida Supreme Court will hear arguments Feb. 6 in a dispute about construction of a hospital in Volusia County. 

The federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has given SOLIS Health Plans approval to begin offering Medicare Advantage plans in Florida beginning in 2019 in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Orange and Hillsborough counties. 

Overall enrollment in Florida’s commercial health-insurance market in 2017 dipped by more than 96,000 people, or 2.55 percent, from the previous year, a new state report shows. 

Florida has money and resources ready as red tide that has lingered along the Gulf Coast has been detected in Palm Beach County’s coastal waters, Gov. Rick Scott’s office said Tuesday. 

Legal challenges continue to mount over the state’s Medicaid managed-care program. Lighthouse Health Plan filed a petition in state administrative court last week challenging state decisions that it says will lead to the automatic assignment of Medicaid patients in Northwest Florida to a competitor, Humana. 

From the Bayou Chico contaminated-sediment remediation project in Escambia County to implementing a canal-management master plan in Monroe County, a multi-state council created after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster has approved numerous projects for areas of Florida’s Gulf Coast. 

Moving quickly, an appeals court has scheduled a hearing next week in a public-records lawsuit about whether Gov. Rick Scott should be required to turn over his calendar to an organization locked in a battle with the state about Medicaid contracts. 

In a case stemming from a worker’s finger being severed on a job site, a divided Florida Supreme Court ruled Thursday against Caterpillar Financial Services Corp. in a dispute about whether a piece of equipment should be considered a “dangerous instrumentality.”