sicians at the TMA Fall Conference in October.
Enter the TMA’s Physician Services
Organization (PSO), which will give practices the strategies and services they need to succeed in an accountable care environment, while remaining indepen- dent if they so choose.
The PSO is still under development and expected to launch in early 2014. Meanwhile, TMA leaders and consul- tants gave physicians a preview of the project at the conference. With more hospitals and payers jumping into accountable care, TMA’s PSO “will help Texas physicians level
the playing field,” TMA Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer Louis J. Goodman, PhD, said. They will get “the methodologies and the tools to provide the high-quality care they have always provided and do that at a lower cost in this new environment.” TMA leaders unveiled an array of
proposed, customizable PSO services. They fall into four categories that aim to meet practices’ varying goals and levels of sophistication, including:
Ask the TMA Knowledge Center Trust the answer
The TMA Knowledge Center is a free member benefit that can help you with legislative/advocacy information; payment, cod- ing, and billing; workers’ compensation; continuing medical education; and more. The experienced staff can answer all of your questions and help you with any number of situations in your practice. Contact the TMA Knowledge Center by telephone at (800) 880-7955 or by email at knowledge@texmedorg.
Q. What workplace posters is our medical office required to post for our employees?
A. Any applicable Texas and federal labor law posters should be posted and visible to the staff in medical offices. Visit the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) website (
bit.ly/19U4mjs) for information about workplace posters. TWC urges employers to be aware of unscrupulous business
operators who may try to coerce employers into purchasing re- quired workplace posters. Obtaining these compliance posters through TWC, as always, is free. Employers do not need to pur- chase the posters from private vendors. Furthermore, govern- ment-issued compliance posters do not have to be laminated to satisfy an employer’s regulatory obligation. To report inap- propriate vending of posters, call the TWC Fraud and Program Abuse Hotline at (800) 252-3642. The U.S. Department of Labor lists poster requirements for small business and other employers online at
http://1.usa .gov/1gO0f9U.
14 TEXAS MEDICINE December 2013
• Practice transformation: revenue cycle management, administrative management, and technologies such as electronic medical records or per- sonal health records.
• Clinical integration: physician net- work development, network admin- istration, and contracting services.
• Value-based care models: case man- agement; care management; popula- tion, quality, and utilization analytics; and patient engagement.
• Enterprise solutions (information technology): data collection and workflow, health information ex- change, pre- and post-claims adjudi- cation, and payer functions such as enrollment and claims processing.
The PSO recognizes that while phy- sician practices wish to remain autono- mous, they likely will have to collabo- rate under an accountable care structure, said TMA Vice President of Membership and Business Development Bridget McPhillips. “This is about providing you with the guidance, the consultation, and the technology to truly transform your practice and move you into the future.” For more information about the PSO, email Kim Harmon, TMA’s director of special projects, at kim.harmon@tex
med.org. Future issues of Texas Medicine will feature more PSO coverage.
Walk the walk
Ready to practice what you preach? TMA’s Walk With a Doc program is part of a national grassroots movement de- voted to encouraging healthy physical
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