Hoover v. The Agency for Health Care Administration case brief

Hoover v. The Agency for Health Care Administration case brief summary
676 So.2d 1380 (1996)

CASE SYNOPSIS

Appellant physician sought review of a decision, by the appellee Agency for Health Care Administration, Board of Medicine (Florida), penalizing the appellant and restricting her license to practice medicine.

CASE FACTS
Following a decision by the appellee Agency for Health Care Administration, Board of Medicine, penalizing appellant physician and restricting her license to practice medicine based upon the charge that appellant had inappropriately and excessively prescribed certain medications, the appellant sought review. 

DISCUSSION

• The court held that the appellee acted overzealously in supplanting a hearing officer's valid findings of fact regarding the appellant's prescription practices based upon a woefully inadequate quantum of evidence. 
• The appellee merely stated that the hearing officer's findings of fact were not supported by competent substantial evidence and did not state valid reasons for rejecting the findings with particularity. 
• The hearing officer did not, as the appellee asserted, rely solely on federal guidelines in finding that appellant's prescription practices were not excessive. 
• Rather the federal guidelines merely buttressed findings of fact that were independently supported by the hearing officer's determination of the persuasiveness of medical testimony. 
• Because the appellee supplanted valid findings of fact with its own opinion, the decision of the appellee should be reversed.

CONCLUSION
The court reversed the findings of the appellee medical board because the appellee rejected the hearing officer's valid findings of fact and supplanted those findings with its own independent and unsupported determination. Rather than finding valid reasons for rejecting the hearing officer's findings, the appellee merely came to a peremptory conclusion that the original findings of fact were not supported by competent substantial evidence.

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