Rx to fix Medicaid
TMA’s six-part Medicaid reform plan
• Improve physicians’ Medicaid payments;
• Cut Medicaid red tape and administrative hassles;
TMA President Austin I. King, MD, displays a massive Medicaid rulebook to make the point that red tape is strangling physicians who participate in Medicaid.
• Hold Medicaid HMOs accountable for establishing adequate physician networks;
TMA calls for Medicaid reform
AT A CAPITOL NEWS CONFERENCE, TMA and the Border Health Caucus asked state leaders and lawmakers for major improvements to the Texas Medicaid program. “Either our state can continue on its
current path pushing physicians out of the program, or it can make needed changes that will improve patients’ ac- cess to care and save taxpayers money,” said TMA President Austin I. King, MD.
Physicians from across the state
joined Dr. King; Doug Curran, MD, TMA Board of Trustees vice chair; Luis Benavides, MD, Council on Leg- islation member and Border Health Caucus vice chair; and Michael Bat- tista, MD, a San Antonio neonatologist, to urge support for TMA’s six-part Medicaid reform plan.
+
• Restore funding for Medicaid-Medicare
The physicians shared real-life sto-
ries of how Medicaid’s low payment rates and bureaucratic hassles hurt patient care. “Just last week, I spent three hours
on the phone with a Medicaid HMO trying to get a generic prescription approved for my elderly patient after surgery,” said Dr. Curran. “I talked to three different people, and not one of them could help — that costs my staff and me time and money and delays care for my patient.” Dr. Battista said he can’t find pe- diatricians or subspecialists to take care of his infant patients once they leave the neonatal intensive care unit. “These babies end up in the emergen- cy department a few weeks later with complications,” he explained. “Care coordination is desperately needed. It would help save millions of dollars.” Watch video excerpts of the news
conference at tma.tips/Medicaid NewsConf.
TMA’s Medicaid advocacy campaign :
www.texmed.org/medicaidchip
“dual-eligible” patients;
• Stop unfair and unreasonable fraud and abuse audits; and
• Find a creative solution to pull down federal dollars to ensure access to health care for work- ing, poor adults.
PHOTOS BY JIM LINCOLN
April 2015 TEXAS MEDICINE 21
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68