Conference Speakers Focus on MACRA, Zika, Telemedicine

If you missed our 2016 TMA Fall Conference, you missed a display not only of the complex issues confronting medicine today but also of the strength of the response TMA is bringing.

  • During a panel on “Mind-Numbing MACRA,” Council on Socioeconomics Chair John Carlo, MD, led a discussion of the challenges physicians face in complying with the pending rules for the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act. Along with David Gans of the Medical Group Management Association; Clifford Moy, MD, of TMF Health Quality Institute; and Rich Steinle of Innovista Health Solutions, Dr. Carlo helped the audience understand all of MACRA’s fast-moving pieces and the tools and resources TMA has to help. 
  • Turning to the public health threat posed by the Zika virus, TMA President Don Read, MD, and Council on Science and Public Health Chair David Lakey, MD, led a panel that explored the late-breaking science on this disease. “Nero fiddled while Rome burned, and our congressmen throw tomatoes at each other and fail to fund Zika,” Dr. Read said. Texas Health Commissioner John Hellerstedt, MD, and Houston obstetrician Catherine Eppes, MD, both added extensive expertise to the discussion. Dr. Lakey estimated the cost to the state for a lifetime of caring for a child born with microcephaly due to Zika at $2.5 million to $10 million. 

And at the early morning Dawn Duster session, attorney Tara Kepler of Kepler Health Law laid out compliance craters — from prescribing to HIPAA — and payment potholes related to practicing telemedicine in Texas.

Last Updated On

September 28, 2016

Originally Published On

September 28, 2016

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