Challenge and opportunity – the biennial Yin Yang of the Texas Legislature – return on Jan. 10, 2017. With your help, the Texas Medical Association can face up to the challenges and seize the opportunity. Physicians, TMA Alliance members, and medical students who answer the call for First Tuesdays at the Capitol will focus on:
- Preserving physicians’ right to bill for services;
- Improving Medicaid payment rates and reducing red tape and hassles;
- Protecting the patient-physician relationship while taking advantage of new technology such as telemedicine;
- Physician licensing and disciplinary issues as part of the Sunset review of the Texas Medical Board;
- Deflecting scope of practice threats;
- Winning funding for public health surveillance and prevention; and
- Maintaining Texas’ strong medical liability reforms.
Tight budgets, well-funded opponents, and hyperpartisanship will combine to make 2017 a particularly perilous legislative session for medicine and for patients. It is absolutely essential that we engage our representatives and senators early and often.
Physicians, alliance members, and medical students from around the state will converge on Austin the first Tuesday of each month to reenact the White Coat Invasion. Lobbying tips, legislative briefings and debriefings, and personal visits to legislators’ offices are all part of First Tuesdays at the Capitol. The Texas Medical Association and Texas Medical Association Alliance are calling on YOU. Be a medical lobbyist for a day. You will make a difference.
“Well attended, organized, and effective First Tuesdays at the Capitol are absolutely critical tactical tools for our success at the Texas Legislature,” said TMA President Don R. Read, MD.
Last Updated On
September 28, 2016
Originally Published On
April 12, 2016