Stories from Texas Medicine, September 2017

Fulfilling a Dream - 10/20/2023

The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley School of Medicine has largely dispensed with lectures and focuses more on group learning and practical experience. This and other innovations dovetail with the school's focus on public health, which is vital in a region notorious for high poverty and chronic health problems.


A Peer? Nowhere Near - 09/05/2017

Health plans regulated by the Texas Department of Insurance (TDI) must give a practitioner a chance to explain to a physician why a treatment is medically necessary or appropriate before a utilization review agent denies the request. Texas laws and TDI regulations don't expressly state that a physician who handles a peer-to-peer call has to be of the same or a similar specialty.