No. CS/HB 447
Filed under Healthcare.
Pub. Rec. and Meetings/Mental Health and Substance Abuse; Specifies that hearings relating to mental health & substance abuse, respectively, are confidential & closed to public; provides exceptions; exempts certain information from public records requirements; expands public records exemption to include certain petitions & applications; authorizes disclosure of certain confidential & exempt documents to certain service providers; authorizes courts to use respondent's name for certain purposes; revises applicability; provides for future legislative review & repeal of exemption; making technical changes; provides statements of public necessity.
Plain English Summary
AI-GENERATEDHearings on mental health treatment petitions and substance abuse assessment or treatment petitions are now closed to the public by default, unless the respondent consents to an open hearing or a judge finds good cause to open it.
The records exemption widens too: a respondent's name at a hearing or on appeal, applications as well as petitions, and mental health examination filings, not just treatment filings, are now confidential and kept from public records requests.
Confidential court records can now also go to a respondent's 'service provider,' not just their treating health care practitioner, and the court can still use a respondent's name to schedule hearings and send out orders.
The mental health confidentiality rules now reach records held by the Division of Administrative Hearings, not only courts, and cover appeals filed from 2026 onward -- though the whole exemption expires automatically in 2031 unless renewed.
AIAll hearings under the mental health (Baker Act) and substance abuse (Marchman Act) parts of the statutes are now confidential and closed to the public unless the respondent consents to an open hearing or a judge or administrative law judge finds good cause to open it.
AIThe exemption from public records law now covers applications as well as petitions, mental health examination filings alongside treatment filings, and voluntary substance abuse treatment petitions alongside involuntary assessment ones, plus the respondent's name at a hearing or on appeal and appeals filed on or after July 1, 2026.
AIThe clerk of court's list of people who may receive otherwise-confidential pleadings and documents now includes the respondent's service provider, in addition to the respondent's treating health care practitioner.
AIEven though the clerk may not publish personal identifying information on a court docket or public file, the court itself may still use the respondent's name to schedule and adjudicate the case and to send court orders to the parties or the service provider.
AIThe confidentiality and closed-hearing rules for mental health cases apply equally to records held by the Division of Administrative Hearings, not only to records held by a court.
AILike other Florida public-records exemptions, this one is subject to the Open Government Sunset Review Act and will repeal itself on October 2, 2031, unless the Legislature reviews and reenacts it first.