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Is it already time to review the Texas Medical Board? Again?
Remarkably, yes. And the Texas Medical Association once again is making recommendations to the Sunset Advisory Commission — hoping, among other things, to boost the fairness of Texas Medical Board (TMB) investigations when physicians face a board complaint.
You may recall that last year, the Texas Legislature failed to renew TMB during the regular session. That, in part, led Gov. Greg Abbott to call a special session in which lawmakers renewed the board through Sept. 1, 2019. (The sunset bill that didn’t make it through the regular session would have extended the TMB through 2029.) Because of that, TMB is once again under sunset review.
In comments it submitted last week to the commission, TMA called out issues with licensure, remedial plans, and informal settlement conferences (ISCs), meetings between physicians and board representatives to promote settlement of investigations.
TMA’s recommendations included requiring the TMB to:
- Expedite resolution of temporary suspensions or restrictions of licenses to allow earlier access to the State Office of Administrative Hearings;
- Disclose all information to a license holder before an ISC. TMB currently turns over only the information it “intends to use” at an ISC;
- Allow physicians to have more than one remedial plan in their lifetime, and remove the mention of a remedial plan from a physician’s public profile after a certain amount of time;
- Include a plain-language statement of the alleged violation in complaint notices to physicians; and
- Adopt a transparent process to receive and investigate confidential complaints against nonprofit health corporations.
Last month, the sunset commission released its most recent review of TMB as part of the evaluation phase for the upcoming final review. In the earlier report, the panel recommended continuing the board for the standard 12 years. The commission is now in its deliberation phase and will hold a public meeting on TMB on April 25-26. TMA will testify at that meeting, and Texas Medicine Today will cover it.
Last Updated On
April 19, 2018
Originally Published On
April 17, 2018