Physician Advocacy

Today is the 131st day of the session. But who’s counting? The House and Senate both have less than one week to vote on bills, which must be complete by midnight May 22. Meanwhile, lawmakers are finalizing negotiations on the final 2020-21 state budget; the deadline for agreement between the two chambers is midnight May 26. Here’s a status check on numerous bills that continue to move through the legislative process.

With just 17 days until sine die, the Texas House of Representatives’ deadlines yesterday and today mean death to lots of legislation, good and bad. This week’s TMA Legislative Hotline video also provides a rapid-fire summary of recent days’ movement on several TMA priority bills and news of a record for TMA grassroots advocacy.

As much as we value investing in the state’s public education system, we also keenly support boosting the health and well-being of Texans. Education and health care are different sides of the same coin. One without the other will not lead to lasting prosperity for our patients and communities, or for the state.

After hearing story after story of delays and denials, the Texas Medical Association is pushing the Texas Legislature to sign off on measures that would significantly curb insurers’ ability to require prior authorization on needed care, as well as clarify for both physicians and patients what it means when prior authorization is required.

Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine will stop considering race or ethnicity when selecting candidates for admission, part of an agreement with the U.S. Education Department’s civil rights office.

Please contact your state lawmakers today through the new TMA Grassroots Action Center. Let them know you support physician-led, team-based care. Tell them how much you learned in your years of medical school, residency, and beyond. Tell them why APRNs are NOT the answer to Texas’ physician shortage. Ask them to say “No” to the APRNs and to help the Texas Medical Association stop them.

The 2019 Texas Legislature is now in session — and TMA is ready to fight for medicine. See our plan to help Texas physicians put the health back into health care. 

Texas has the highest percentage and number of people without health insurance in the United States, which could cause long-term damage to the state’s economy, says a study released this week by the Texas Alliance for Health Care.

The Texas Medical Association is pushing for the state legislature to grant physicians a long-overdue pay bump for seeing Medicaid patients. But that effort will require a serious financial commitment, the new chair of the Texas Senate Health and Human Services Committee told physicians at TMA’s Winter Conference.

The Texas Medical Association believes a Texas federal judge’s recent ruling that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is unconstitutional provides a bipartisan pathway to strengthen access to health care and provide coverage for the 4.5 million Texans without health care coverage.

“Remember the old saying: If we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.”

That was the warning C.M. Schade, MD, past president of the Texas Pain Society, delivered as he finished listing the society’s priorities for the 2019 Texas Legislature during the Texas Medical Association’s annual Advocacy Retreat on Saturday morning at the Renaissance Austin.

An appeals court ruled correctly when it reversed a nearly $2 million judgment against a Cypress neurosurgeon, the Texas Medical Association is telling the Texas Supreme Court in a friend-of-the-court brief.