Contents tagged with legislature
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Help wanted: Send us your ideas for the Primary Care Rescue Act
As a die-hard fan of the Texas Longhorns, I have no shame in telling you that after last year’s 5-7 record, I was glad the college football season was over. Even though I’m a self-admitted policy wonk and political news junkie, I was equally relieved—even somewhat jubilant—when the 82nd Texas Legislature finally closed up shop and went home. If you followed the frustrating struggle to balance the state budget without additional revenue, and witnessed the resulting cuts to higher education, public education, and health and human services, you might have been just as ready for it to end as I was. At least when they’re not in session, they can’t do any more damage, right?
Now is not the time to bury our heads in the sand. In fact, the legislative interim is perhaps our best opportunity to formulate and articulate our most effective arguments for renewed investment in Texas’ primary care infrastructure. We can document the ill effects of the drastic reduction in state support for graduate medical education, especially in family medicine residency training, and we can illustrate the broken promise of access to primary care physicians for underserved communities made manifest by the 76-percent cut to the state’s Physician Education Loan Repayment Program.
And now is the time to begin preparations for a major initiative in the next legislative session. In the late ’80s, rural medicine in Texas was in terrible need of state investment. Health care organizations and advocates rallied around a broad set of goals encompassed in what was called the Omnibus Rural Healthcare Rescue Act, which the Legislature passed in 1989. The law created the Center for Rural Health Initiatives and the Office of Rural Health Care, and it contained tort reforms, benefits for rural hospitals, several reforms to strengthen the state’s trauma care infrastructure, and new recruitment and training programs for primary care physicians. Family medicine won funding for third-year clerkships, among other valuable reforms.
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Capitol Update: Session ends with passage of omnibus health reform law, budget cuts
Capitol Update: Session ends with passage of omnibus health reform law, budget cuts
Plus, watch the final installment of Capitol Report video webcast
posted 07.07.11
It took the full 140-day … more
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Texas Family Physician - Vol. 62 No. 3, Summer 2011
Go to the TFP archive
View the virtual issue
President’s Letter
Member News
Perspective
CONTENTS
Cover: The session of what might have beenNow that the 82nd Legislature and the … more
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Budget slashes 80 percent of support for programs designed to increase primary care physician workforce
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Budget slashes 80 percent of support for programs designed to increase primary care physician workforce
By Jonathan Nelson
As lawmakers crafted and passed innovative, market-based … more
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Good News, Bad News: TAFP’s recap of the 82nd Texas Lege
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Good News, Bad News:TAFP’s recap of the 82nd Texas Lege
By Kate Alfano
For health care reform advocates, the 82nd Texas Legislature will go down as the session of what might have … more
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Capitol Update: IMG licensure bill signed into law
Capitol Update: IMG licensure bill signed into law
posted 06.22.11
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Omnibus health reform bill stalls as House and Senate try to reconcile differences
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Thanks to the Physicians of … more
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Capitol Update: 82nd Legislature adjourns, special session begins
Capitol Update: 82nd Legislature adjourns, special session begins
Health care reform bills get second chance
posted 06.02.11
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$172.3 billion budget puts $4.8 billion on “Medicaid … more
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Without investing in physician training, health care bill creates aims without the means
An important piece of legislation designed to improve quality and lower costs in our fractured and inefficient health care system has received a second chance in the Special Session after dying in the House when time ran out on the 82nd Texas Legislature. However, because of other actions taken by our legislators that defund primary care residency training and other programs to bolster the physician workforce now and in the future, Senate Bill 8’s laudable goals are left without the means to achieve them.
The overarching goal of S.B. 8 is to reverse the negative trend in our health care system, to bend the cost curve by testing and implementing various performance-based payment methods that provide incentives for improved patient outcomes. It achieves this through two key mechanisms: the creation of health care collaboratives and the creation of the Texas Institute of Health Care Quality and Efficiency.
As envisioned in the bill, health care collaboratives clinically integrate physicians, hospitals, diagnostic labs, imaging centers, and other health care providers, aligning financial incentives to keep patients healthy and out of the hospital and emergency room. They are designed to move the delivery system away from a fee-for-service based system—where physicians and hospitals are paid for quantity of services over quality—to one in which doctors, hospitals, and other providers are accountable for the overall care of the patient and the total cost of the care provided.
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Capitol Update: Family medicine residency programs face massive cut in budget agreement
Capitol Update: Family medicine residency programs face massive cut in budget agreement
posted 05.24.11
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Bills to expand scope of nurse practitioners fail
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Some wins, some … more
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Capitol Update: With time running out on the Legislature, special session “likely”
Capitol Update: With time running out on the Legislature, special session “likely”
posted 05.17.11
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New law allows rural hospitals to hire physicians
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IMG licensure bill heads to … more