CE Broker ..... New Information

[RNPATL, DNP, RN]

Most of you know that I recently moved from Florida to North Carolina. I lived and worked as a nurse in Florida for a little over 20 years. Last year Florida Nurses received a notice from the Florida Department of Health introducing CE Broker. The information made it clear that nurses were required to join in order to track their continuing education requirements. There was nowhere in the literature that said enrollment was optional. Like a good Florida Nurse, I enrolled and spent my $35.00.

Today in the mail, I receive a notice from the Florida Department of Health, dated February 23, 2004 (hello .... the date today is April 20th .... am I missing something)? Anyway, the letter was from the Director of Medical Quality Assurance - Amy Jones, J.D. She wanted to clarify that Florida nurses are NOT required to join CE Broker and that enrollment is optional. In addition, she wanted to clarify that if you were not enrolled, you would not have trouble renewing your Florida license.

I am steaming about this :angryfire because this information is totally contrary to what was sent last year about CE Broker. I have written a letter to the Director of CE Broker DEMANDING a refund and I have sent an email to Amy Jones telling her how outraged I am about this whole issue. In addition, I have also written an email to Jeb Bush about this issue.

Florida nurses should be as outraged about this as I am. The Florida Department of Health's logo was on the information sent out by CE Broker last year to all Florida Nurses. I know that when I receive something from the Florida Department of Health concerning my license, I generally take it seriously and read and comply with what they are saying. How can we as nurses now trust the FDOH, if they are going to lend their logo out and allow outside vendors solicit nurses. This is just WRONG!

I hope every Florida nurse that reads this post and thread writes a letter to Jeb Bush as well as Amy Jones and expresses their concern over the lies and misleading campaign that Florida Nurses have been subjected too.

Perhaps I am very passionate about this, but I think it is wrong when a State agency can sent information out to nurses, make them PAY for something that is really not required and then send another letter out, several months later saying .... oops, we made a little mistake, we allowed an outside sales company use our logo which prompted hundreds of thousands of nurses to send them money and now we want to clarify, after these nurses sent their money, that it was a mistake and nurses are not required to join. Good luck getting any money back!

If you are as outraged and as passionate about this as I am, please send your letters to:

[email protected] (Director of Medical Quality Assurance)

or

[email protected] (Governor of the State of Florida)

[flowerchild]

I received that letter the other day. I don't believe the gov't has any right to say that I am obligated to join a private organization - ie: CE Broker, so I ignored the information the first time I'd heard about it via other nurses discusing the issue. Knowing it is not legal for the BON to require this. I figured there would be some kind of grace period in case I was wrong, or I'd just deal with it. I didn't even open the first letter from CE Broker, probably b/c it was not from the state so I just saw another advertisment in my mailbox to ignore. The state always sends more than one letter when ever there is a change in how our license is handled. When they changed the renewal dates a few years ago I remember receiving at least two letters plus it was brought to the attention of our employer who spoke about in a meeting. I was also in the publication that they send in the mail. I can definitly understand your feelings about this. When I got the letter from the BON, of course I opened it and read about the "misunderstanding" I did think about all those who joined up. I wonder whose at fault. Did CE Broker just print this up without final approval from the Bon on the contents of a letter that had the state logo on it? If they did, CE Broker should be charged with fraudulent advertising and shut down immediatly. If they did it with approval, then the BON should be responsible for any requested refunds to those who followed the letter from CE B. Don't we have a right to know how this happened and who is taking responsiblity for it?