Insurance

The Texas Department of Insurance (TDI) has adopted an emergency rule outlining the narrow circumstances when it will be legal for physicians to balance bill patients under the state’s new law that protects patients from surprise medical bills.

TMA’s Hassle Factor Log® helps you resolve insurance-related problems. TMA meets regularly with Medicare, Medicaid, health plans, and large insurers to discuss the specific problems that you bring to our attention.

“There is a right way and a wrong way to protect patients from surprise medical bills, and the so-called compromise federal legislation announced this weekend in Washington, D.C., is definitely the wrong way,” Texas Medical Association President David C. Fleeger, MD, said Monday.

Arbitrary. Confusing. Frustrating. Never-ending. Maddening. Those are some of the terms we can actually print that describe physicians’ perceptions of insurance companies’ prior authorization requirements and approval processes.

Your personal stories of patient harm due to prior authorization request delays or denials can give the Texas Medical Association the ammunition it needs to fight this problem. 

Be on the lookout for Medicare claims you’ve filed since Oct. 1 in which procedure codes failed to process, causing a rejected claim. You will need to refile these claims.

President Donald Trump’s recent executive order on Medicare includes scope-of-practice language that is raising concerns among Texas physicians – including the president of the Texas Medical Association.

Credentialing with the government and health insurance companies continues to be a complex and time-consuming management function for practices of all sizes. At Nationwide Credentialing, we work with you from start to finish on the credentialing process, which allows physicians and their staff to focus on patients and other important aspects of their practice.

Many physicians assume that attempting to negotiate a health plan contract is hopeless — but that is a myth. Survey data from TMA show that physicians’ negotiation attempts often are successful. Respondents report winning both payment and term changes in their contracts.

It didn’t matter that the charges against me were ludicrous. The potential consequences were only too real, and potentially catastrophic. Had the State Medical Board decided against me, I could have lost my license. I hired a lawyer, sinking more than $8,000 into legal fees. I was cleared by a unanimous committee vote. But other physicians facing similar situations may not be as lucky.

Every day, patients pay a hefty price for their health care, and many are quick to blame rising costs and climbing insurance premiums on the first person that comes to mind: usually the “well-paid physician.”

Don’t let your patients place blame on you unfairly.

TMAIT offers medical, life, income protection, office overhead, and ancillary insurance to TMA member physicians and their group managers. We work with you online, on the phone, or in person to determine the right plan to meet your current career needs. That’s coverage you can count on. Phone: (800) 880-8181

TMA went into this session looking to attack insurer network inadequacy and health plans’ use of care-impeding prior authorization demands.

On both fronts, medicine scored solid legislative wins that will make it easier for patients and physicians to know who’s in network, and provide needed transparency on preauthorization requirements. And on surprise billing, medicine turned what could’ve been a disastrous bill into something more palatable.

TMLT is a unique, not-for-profit health care liability claim trust owned by its physician policyholders, and is the only professional liability carrier exclusively endorsed by the Texas Medical Association. Created in 1979, TMLT has grown to be the largest medical liability provider in the state, protecting more than 14,500 Texas physicians. Phone: (800) 580-8658

The Texas Medical Association’s Healthy Vision 2025 – released this week – seeks to draw a roadmap for how legislators can hold insurance companies accountable for the products they sell to patients.

Expanding Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would help put a substantial dent in the number of uninsured Texans, a new report by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) shows.