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TMA Scores Major Victories for Physicians and Patients
It was a tough legislative session from the outset. With an enormous budget deficit and special interest groups from hospitals to midlevel practitioners to those who wanted to emasculate the Texas Medical Board (TMB) lining up to take on organized medicine, it seemed the Texas Medical Association's agenda for the 2011 Texas Legislature faced tough sledding. But when the session ended on May 30, TMA scored some dramatic victories for physicians and your patients.
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► Why You Should Be in Dallas This Week

You can get free continuing medical education and the latest clinical updates, have a chance to help set TMA policy on medicine's key issues, browse through a lively exhibit hall with some 100 exhibits, and network with colleagues, friends, and former medical school classmates from throughout Texas at TexMed 2012, Friday and Saturday, May 18-19, at the Sheraton Dallas Hotel.

► CMS Plans Temporary Medicaid Fee Hike

Texas primary care physicians would receive a temporary fee increase in 2013-14 for treating Medicaid patients if the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) adopts a rule it proposed May 9. The proposal would make $11 billion available to states to increase Medicaid primary care reimbursement under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

► TMA Wants ICD-10 Canned

TMA is glad the federal government postponed adoption of the ICD-10 coding system until 2014 but believes it should completely scrap ICD-10 for a more up-to-date coding system. If officials don't do that, then they should delay ICD-10 even longer. That was the message TMA delivered in a letter to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on May 11.

► Physicians Get $2 Billion+ From RICO Suits

Physicians have earned more than $2 billion from settlements of federal class-action antiracketeering lawsuits against the nation's largest for-profit HMOs by TMA and 18 other state and county medical societies and physician representatives, according to the Physicians Advocacy Institute.

► TMA Comments on HIT Rules

TMA's Ad Hoc Committee on Health Information Technology has let federal officials know how they can improve the government's programs on meaningful use and electronic health records certification standards scheduled to take effect in 2014. The committee submitted comments on proposed rules governing those programs earlier this month.

► TMA: Women Have Right to Know the Facts

The Woman's Right to Know booklet that Texas law requires physicians to give to all patients considering an elective abortion is factually inaccurate and not science-based, the chair of TMA's Maternal and Perinatal Health Committee wrote to state public health officials.

► Appeal Your Rankings: TMA Tells You How

If a health plan rates you for one of its physician ranking or tiering programs based on cost or quality of care, you don't have to take the results lying down. But you do need to act within 30 days of receiving your preliminary ranking results from the health plan.

► TMA Survey Asks You Important Questions

The 2012 physician survey is under way. Survey topics so far have asked for physicians' opinions on legislative issues, health plan contracts, access to care for patients, and health information technology. If you have not received a survey, please check your junk mail and add "tmainfo@texmed.org" to your address book.

► HHSC Tools Aid EHR Participation

The Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) has two computer-based learning tools to help physicians and hospitals participate in the Texas Medicaid Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Program. The tools are interactive and self-guided with voice or closed-captioned narration.

► POEP Sponsors Breast Cancer Dinner

TMA's Physician Oncology Education Program (POEP) invites you to attend a free dinner lecture and earn up to 2 hours of continuing medical education on June 20 from 5:30 to 8:30 pm in the Thompson Auditorium on the first floor of the TMA building at 401 W. 15th Street in Austin.

► Resources for Reducing Emergency Crowding

Many Texas hospital emergency departments frequently struggle with boarding, overcrowding, and ambulance diversion, prompting various organizations to develop resources to improve the situation. Emergency Department Crowding: High-Impact Solutions, a report from the American College of Emergency Physicians, offers several solutions to reduce the time patients are boarded in emergency.

► Appeals Court Backs TMA in Chiro Lawsuit

Texas chiropractors may not perform needle electromyography or manipulation under anesthesia, the Third Court of Appeals ruled earlier this month.

► TMA Prepares You for ICD-10 in 2014

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services earlier this month reconfirmed its plans to delay the implementation of the ICD-10 coding system for a year, from October 2013 to October 2014. The department previously announced it was delaying ICD-10 because of objections from TMA and others.

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TMA Scores Major Victories for Physicians and Patients

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