Ocala doctor new president of state physician’s group

Dr. Douglas Murphy

Dr. Douglas Murphy

Ocala’s Dr. Doug Murphy Jr. was recently named president of the Florida Medical Association.

The organization is the official voice of the state’s nearly 89,000 medical doctors.

Murphy, who has practiced obstetrics and gynecology for 37 years, began his one year-term on Aug. 31.

A graduate of the University of South Florida College of Medicine, he completed residency training at the Medical University of South Carolina in 1984 and set up his practice in Ocala the same year.

Murphy has been associated with the FMA since the 1980s and is a past president of the FMA Political Action Committee.

“We represent the approximately 25,000 physicians within the state of Florida who are members of the FMA. But by proxy other physicians in the state as well, even those who aren’t members because of our political advocacy,” Murphy pointed out.

Political advocacy is a large part of the group’s overall focus, according to Murphy.

“Every single [legislative] session, we track at least 200-250 bills that involve medicine,” he said.

Legislation viewed as unfavorable is targeted.

“We track bills that are detrimental to medicine and try to get those stopped.”

The organization works directly with specific state-level provider advocacy groups as well to offer support for favorable legislation.

“In many cases, if there is a bill that is particularly important to a certain specialty, FMA may take the lead on that, instead of maybe the general surgeons or the pediatricians, and help them and facilitate so that bill is successful,” Murphy said.

However, if legislation has medical doctors split, the FMA does not take a position.

Not only does the FMA monitor pending legislation crafted by others, but Murphy said the group works to create their own as well.

As president, Murphy’s role is to oversee the FMA’s executive committee and the board of governors.

He said he sees himself as a coalition builder so the FMA can focus on issues and forming a consensus on difficult decisions.

“Our mission statement is to help physicians practice medicine,” he said. “It seems like there are so many barriers that are out there to care that prevent physicians from being able to do what they need to do in a timely fashion and take care of patients.”

Murphy pointed out two specific areas the FMA has focused on recently: insurance companies issuing prior authorizations for referrals or prescriptions and issuing retroactive denials on claims they previously approved.

“If a patient has been on a medication for a while and they change their insurance, many times the new insurance company is going to put them in the situation where they would have to go to step therapy. Going back and start using something that didn’t work for them before,” he said.

But the FMA turned their attention to getting the process updated, Murphy said.

“We got that law changed so that if you change insurance companies, you don’t have to go back to square one. You can continue your medication,” he said.

Retroactive denials, or the ability for an insurance company to deny a submitted claim, were also an issue.

Previously, insurance companies had up to 33 months to retroactively deny a claim they may have initially approved.

Murphy said the FMA worked to change the law, and now insurance companies only have 12 months.

Looking ahead, Murphy noted two additional areas the FMA would like to focus on. He said making sure there are enough training and residency spots for the state to train providers is vital to keep up with the growing population around the state.

The FMA also wants Florida’s physicians reimbursed fairly by Medicare, Medicaid and private payers.

Murphy, who just got over a breakthrough case of COVID-19, credited the vaccine for his relatively mild case.

“There’s a lot of misinformation. We know for a fact that COVID vaccinations work. They’re not perfect, but they do work to prevent severe disease… There’s a lot of misinformation on social media that’s very unfortunate because it’s making people afraid that shouldn’t be afraid,” he said.