“We truly appreciate the dedication, hard work, and legislative savvy demonstrated by Senators Nelson and Huffman and Representatives King and Schwertner.”
physicians as mandated by Senate Bill 104, which the Texas Legislature passed in 2003 with our strong support.” This year, in testimony before the House Committee on Public Health, Dr. Teuscher said TMA felt a strong but fair TMB was a “lynchpin of the success of the liability reforms we passed in 2003.” Texas physicians strongly supported SB 104 as a key part of the “reforms we enacted to rid this state of the epidemic of lawsuit abuse,” he said.
A restriction too far Representative Brown filed his legislation to reform the TMB
disciplinary processes in 2009 and again this year. But instead of just making the complaint process fairer for physicians, TMA and TMB officials say AAPS and Dr. Hotze lobbied to insert language into Representative Brown’s bill that would have made it almost impossible for the board to protect patients. For example, TMB Executive Director Mari Robinson, JD,
says the provision on nontherapeutic prescribing would have hurt the board’s ability to go after so-called “pill mills” that dis- pense huge quantities of narcotic pain medications to patients who then sell them on the street. (See “Chasing Dr. Feelgood,” pages 41–45.)
“The physicians are just selling prescriptions, and the patient
turns around and sells the drugs,” Ms. Robinson said. “I don’t know that we would ever be able to prove a likelihood of harm there. The patient isn’t actually taking the drugs; they’re sell- ing the drugs for money.” Additionally, she says, financial conflict-of-interest language would have been virtually impossible to enforce. “The way that provision was written it said that no board member or any of their relatives to the second degree could have any ownership interest in common or in conflict with any licensee,” Ms. Robinson said. “That’s pretty broad. You could say somebody has stock
in Verizon and someone could have stock in AT&T and that would be a conflict under this bill. The difficulty is we don’t track our licensees’ investments, and I’m pretty sure y’all wouldn’t want us to.” Relatives covered under the provisions would have includ- ed spouses, children, parents, siblings, and other relatives of board members. As for requiring jury trials for those facing license revoca- tion, Ms. Robinson says the regulatory system isn’t set up to
24 TEXAS MEDICINE July 2011
accommodate that, even though physicians may appeal disci- plinary actions to district court. “The government code requires that our trials go to SOAH, and ultimately a doctor-driven board decides what the appro- priate penalty is,” she said. “If you’re going to have a system where the licensees are regulated by a licensee-driven board, you want that licensee-driven board to be able to make the penalty decisions. If you don’t want to have a system where li- censees are regulated by a licensee-driven board and you want it to be more like medical malpractice, then you would go to district court and have juries. But you really can’t mix the two and have it make any sense.” Although the House passed Representative Brown’s bill
— an action Dr. Hotze called a “grand slam home run” — it turned into a pennant winner for TMA in the Senate, which opted to pass Senator Nelson’s TMB reforms that earned TMA’s support. In the end, Dr. Teuscher says passage of the TMB reforms means “TMA stood up for a fair yet strong medical board that doesn’t harass doctors who are practicing good, ethical, and safe medicine.” n
Ken Ortolon is senior editor of Texas Medicine. You can reach him by telephone at (800) 880-1300, ext. 1392, or (512) 370-1392; by fax at (512) 370-1629; or by email at
ken.ortolon@texmed.org.
All articles in Texas Medicine that mention Texas Medical Association’s stance on state legislation are defined as “legislative advertising,” according to Texas Govt. Code Ann. §305.027. That law requires disclosure of the name and address of the person who contracts with the printer to publish the legislative advertising in Texas Medicine: Louis J. Goodman, PhD, Executive Vice President, TMA, 401 W. 15th St., Austin, TX 78701.
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