Hot News Topics Issues

Hot News Topics
READ MORE
TMA Scores Major Victories for Physicians and Patients
It was a tough legislative session from the outset. With an enormous budget deficit and special interest groups from hospitals to midlevel practitioners to those who wanted to emasculate the Texas Medical Board (TMB) lining up to take on organized medicine, it seemed the Texas Medical Association's agenda for the 2011 Texas Legislature faced tough sledding. But when the session ended on May 30, TMA scored some dramatic victories for physicians and your patients.
Hot News Topics

► Pack Your Bags for TexMed 2012

More than 100 hours of continuing medical education, the latest clinical updates, and a chance to help set TMA policy on medicine's key issues will be available to physicians who attend TexMed 2012 at the Sheraton Dallas Hotel May 18-19.

► Appeals Court Backs TMA in Chiro Lawsuit

Texas chiropractors may not perform needle electromyography or manipulation under anesthesia, the Third Court of Appeals ruled earlier this month.

► TMA Prepares You for ICD-10 in 2014

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services earlier this month reconfirmed its plans to delay the implementation of the ICD-10 coding system for a year, from October 2013 to October 2014. The department previously announced it was delaying ICD-10 because of objections from TMA and others.

► Medicaid Opens Meaningful Use Portal

If you participate in the Texas Medicaid Electronic Health Record Incentive Program and already have successfully attested to first-year requirements, you now may begin attesting to receive 2012 Stage 1 meaningful use incentives.

► TMLT Enhances Medefense Coverage

All Texas Medical Liability Trust (TMLT) policies covering individual physicians include the Medefense Endorsement, which provides reimbursement for legal and tax audit expenses for disciplinary proceedings.

► DSHS to Begin SCID Screening

The Department of State Health Services (DSHS) Newborn Screening Program will add severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) to the Texas Newborn Screening Panel in September.

► Aetna Deselecting 130 Texas Physicians

Aetna has notified 130 Texas physicians it will terminate them from its networks on July 1, TMA's Payment Advocacy Department has learned. Aetna says it told the physicians a year ago it was concerned about their billing patterns. Evaluation and management (E&M) codes were the only ones Aetna examined, and its concern involves primarily levels 4 and 5 E&M codes.

► Did You Get an E-Prescribing Penalty?

Some physicians have picked up a 1-percent Medicare penalty this year for not e-prescribing in 2011, even though they thought they did everything correctly.

► Judge Upholds Prop 12 Tort Reform Caps

Caps on pain and suffering awards in health care lawsuits – part of the landmark 2003 tort reform law TMA and its allies pushed through the legislature – are constitutional, U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap ruled in March. He denied claims by 10 plaintiffs who contended the caps on noneconomic damages violated the U.S. Constitution. He also dismissed claims that a cap on damages unconstitutionally takes private property and that it bars access to the courts.

► House Repeals IPAB; Bill's Future Doubtful

In what appears to be a futile gesture, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation abolishing the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), a 15-member panel appointed by the president that would recommend cuts in Medicare payment fees to physicians if federal spending on health care reaches certain levels.

► Physicians Foundation Checks Your Pulse

The Physicians Foundation is surveying you and your 650,000 physician colleagues across the country to determine how satisfied you are with the current state of medicine. The survey asks about the state of your practice, your morale, your career plans, and whether you can continue providing services in light of escalating regulatory and financial burdens.

► Medicine Warns of Brewing Regulatory Storm

Physicians face an "imminent storm" of mass confusion caused by overlapping regulatory mandates and reporting requirements from multiple federal programs unless federal officials do something to prevent it, TMA and other state and national medical societies warn in a letter to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Acting Director Marilyn Tavenner.

► Newborn Screening Changes Start June 1

Changes to requirements for using and storing newborn screening blood spot cards take effect June 1. Beginning on that date, physicians and other health care professionals must give parents a different decision form when they collect a newborn screening specimen.

Hot News Topics

TMA Scores Major Victories for Physicians and Patients

Hot News Topics

About

Connect

Related Organizations

Just for ...