How are our red-tape reduction laws working for you?
The Texas Medical Association won pas- sage of a series of red-tape reduction laws during the 2013 legislative session to help physician practices improve ef- ficiency and recover valuable time and money spent away from patient care. Some of those laws are already in force; another will take effect in January. Starting in June, Senate bills 1609
and 1610 by Senator Charles Schwert- ner, MD (R-Georgetown), streamlined the training and breach notification requirements in the state’s 2011 medi- cal privacy law. SB 1609 gives practices flexibility to determine the format of the privacy training and allows more time to train new employees. SB 1610 sets a single Texas standard for complying with the breach notification law, regardless of what state the patient lives in, and al- lows practices to send written notice to patients’ last known address. As of Sept. 1, Senate Bill 166 by Sen.
Robert Deuell, MD (R-Greenville), and Rep. Lyle Larson (R-San Antonio) al- lowed physicians and their staff to check in patients using the electronic strip on the back of their Texas driver’s license. Effective Jan. 1, 2014, House Bill
1803 by Rep. Bill Callegari (R-Katy) and Sen. Joan Huffman (R-Houston) moves the renewal process of the Texas Depart- ment of Public Safety (DPS) Controlled Substances Registration (CSR) from DPS to the online medical license renewal process at the Texas Medical Board. It also puts CSR renewals on the same two-year cycle as the medical license renewals.
TMA wants to hear from you: How
are these laws helping your practice? Contact the TMA Knowledge Center with your comments or questions by calling (800) 880-7955 or emailing knowledge@tex
med.org.
Meanwhile, another pair of TMA-
backed bills, Senate bills 644 and 1216, require the Texas Department of Insur-
Our exclusive CIRCA™ process provides access to the data mining analysis
and the consultants capable of finding “new found” revenue that is rightly due to you as a medical provider through the Prompt Pay regulations. Med-Enterprise has a unique technology process that performs a retro analysis at the timeliness and accuracy of claims payments by insurance companies (payers) to locate “found money” for physician groups, hospital systems, surgery centers and pharmacies. Your state’s Prompt Pay statute may allow for the pursuit of these funds and Med-Enterprise has the Prompt Pay process and technology to perform this analysis. We take a consultative, relationship driven approach with the providers, assisting them in every step of the process through recovery. We welcome your inquiries.
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December 2013 TEXAS MEDICINE 43
ance (TDI) to appoint stakeholder work- groups to design standardized prior au- thorization forms across all public and private payers for prescription drugs and health care services. TDI began request- ing applications in September, as re- quired by the laws. TMA officials expect that the committees will be finalized in November. The association will work with the participating physicians and
their practice managers to identify the most hassle-free form design to reduce any administrative burdens on physician practices. Future issues of Texas Medicine will cover the workgroup meetings as they develop. n
Amy Lynn Sorrel is an associate editor of Texas Medicine. You can reach her by telephone at (800) 880-1300, ext. 1392, or (512) 370-1392; by fax at (512) 370-1629; or by email at
amy.sorrel@
texmed.org.
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