Healthy Vision 2025

Medicine’s Monthly Bullhorn: First Tuesdays at the Capitol - 03/28/2019

First Tuesdays are important not only for getting medicine’s message across in the moment, but also for building and maintaining relationships that pay dividends in the future. The Vijjeswarapus experience it all as Texas Medicine follows them on the morning of this year’s first First Tuesdays.

Section 6: Focus on Teamwork and Patient Safety - 02/13/2019

Texas needs more physicians and other health care professionals working in all parts of the state, especially in rural and border Texas.

Healthy Vision 2025’s Plan to Hold Insurance Companies Accountable for What They Sell - 02/07/2019

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.

Physician’s Emotional Tale Illustrates the Tragedy of Maternal Death - 02/07/2019

I’d never met Eugene Hunt, MD, but reached out to him last year as we were writing  Healthy Vision 2025 , the latest edition of TMA’s advocacy blueprint. A major section of the document details our legislative plans to address Texas’ alarming increase in maternal morbidity and mortality. I wanted to include the story of a physician who had been through the trauma of losing a new mother post-partum. I got a tip to call Dr. Hunt.

Healthy Vision 2025’s Plan to Ensure White Coats, Not Gray Suits, Practice Medicine - 02/04/2019

The Texas Medical Association’s Healthy Vision 2025 – released last week – draws a roadmap for how legislators can ensure that physicians are the ones treating their patients, not analysts or the finance department.

Section 5: Make Motherhood Safe - 01/30/2019

It Didn’t Have to Be Eugene Hunt, MD, estimates he’s attended the delivery of thousands  ¾ “three, four, five thousand?”  ¾ of infants in his 35 years of practice as a Dallas obstetrician. Two “sad, sad, sad” cases stick in his mind.

Section 2: Protect Our Liability Reforms - 01/30/2019

Texas’ 2003 medical liability reforms swiftly ended an epidemic of lawsuit abuse, brought thousands of sorely needed new physicians to Texas, and encouraged the state’s shell-shocked physicians to return to caring for patients with high-risk diseases and injuries.

President's Message - 01/16/2019

As we enter 2019, patient care in Texas is at a critical crossroads. Let us choose the right path forward. For starters, Texas still ranks 41st nationally in physicians per 100,000 population. Not enough of our health care dollars are going to health care. Corporations are pressing harder to dictate patient care decisions. Insurance company abuses create unnecessary barriers to patient care. Unqualified providers are trying to make dangerous medical decisions. Behavioral health and public health need much more of our attention. Too much of our state’s population is uninsured. Infant and maternal mortality rates are alarming. We are losing our state's medical-school-trained doctors to residency programs in other states. And Medicare and Medicaid payments often don’t even cover the cost of patient care.