Hart Bill Part 2: Covered Conditions and Disability

Paolo Longo and Megan Danner continue their Hart Bill series by breaking down the third and fourth elements required for a claim: the covered condition and disability. They focus on the current litigation over what counts as heart disease, especially after the Harlem decision, and then walk through how disability is proved in real-world hypertension cases.This episode is especially useful for first responders, adjusters, and attorneys who need a practical read on when a condition is covered and what kind of medical documentation is enough to establish disablement.

Key topics

• Recap of the four Hart Bill elements: covered employee, clean pre-employment physical, covered condition, and disability.
• The main covered conditions under the Hart Bill: heart disease, hypertension, and tuberculosis.
• How the older medical definition of heart disease treated it broadly as any organic, mechanical, or functional abnormality of the heart, its structures, or coronary arteries.
• How the Harlem case narrowed the definition of heart disease and created disputes over whether arrhythmias are covered.
• Why AFib, SVT, PVCs, and pacemaker-related claims are frequently denied under Harlem.
• The legal uncertainty surrounding whether Harlem applies to arrhythmia cases.
• The difference between medical understanding and court-created definitions of heart disease.
• Proposed legislative efforts to add the medical definition directly into Florida Statute 112.
• Why disability under the statute means incapacity to earn wages—not necessarily total disability in the everyday sense.
• Why stable hypertension usually does not qualify unless it causes work incapacity.
• How treatment, missed work, light duty, or a doctor’s work restriction can help establish disability.
• The importance of blood pressure logs, medical notes, same-day treatment records, and proof of missed work.
• Why all four elements must be met before the claim is presumed work-related and the burden shifts to the insurance company.