ing in the House of Medicine,” said TMA Council on Legislation Chair Ray Callas, MD. “Let’s work together as a team.” Led by Dr. Callas and TMA Vice


President for Advocacy Darren Whitehurst, TMA’s lobby team laid out the top legislative issues TMA has been working on for months. They in- clude the state budget, insurance re- form, scope of practice, telemedicine, the Texas Medical Board, and public health priorities. The most-frequently mentioned 2017 legislative priorities for the 23 specialty societies that participated were:


• Surprise bills and preserving physi- cians’ ability to bill for out-of-net- work services;


• Scope of practice, an especially dic- ey issue this session because all of the health professionals’ licensing agencies are up for sunset review;


• Telemedicine; • Opioid addiction and the prescrip- tion drug monitoring database;


• Maintaining the momentum TMA has built for expanding graduate medical education; and


• Medicaid funding and administra- tive hassles.


TDI proposes HMO rule rewrite


WHENEVER A STATE AGENCY under- takes a wholesale overhaul of a set of regulations important to physicians and patients, TMA examines the pro- posal extremely carefully. That’s why a TMA staff team spent weeks study- ing the Texas Department of Insur- ance’s (TDI’s) Oct. 7 proposed repeal and rewrite of the entire regulatory chapter on HMOs. In a 101-page comment letter, TMA focused on payment for emergency out-of-network care and network ad- equacy standards. TMA urged TDI to


24 TEXAS MEDICINE February 2017


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