Advocating for family medicine in Texas

The Primary Care Marshall Plan

COVID-19 exposed the ways that our health system fails patients. The pandemic revealed flaws in our payment systems, demonstrated how our rules and regulations inhibit technological progress in health care and highlighted how our public health surveillance system is inadequate to contain the spread of disease.

It also provides us the opportunity to repair and rebuild a stronger, more resilient system prepared for future public health crises. This five point plan contains a set of policies designed to transform health care delivery in Texas through improved access to primary care.

> The Primary Care Marshall Plan: A Five-Point Plan to Transform Health Care in Texas

Texas Public Health Coalition

As a member of the Texas Public Health Coalition, TAFP supports responsible reforms to reduce preventable disease, promote a safe and healthy environment, and encourage healthy behaviors for all Texans.

TPHC One-Pagers

> Child Vaccinations
> Tobacco
> Maternal Health
> Chronic Disease
> Adult Vaccinations
> Public Health Infrastructure

Past publications

The state of health care in Texas

> Condition critical: The case for rescuing primary care in Texas
This Texas Family Physician article describes the possible threats to the state’s economy and citizens if the Texas Legislature continues to ignore the primary care workforce shortage throughout the state.

> The Primary Solution: Mending Texas’ Fractured Health Care System
This document created by TAFP and its partners in the Primary Care Coalition defines recommendations to fight the health care crisis facing Texas and lay the foundation for an efficient health care delivery system.

Direct primary care

> Direct Primary Care: An alternative to fee-for-service
Direct primary care is an innovative model for delivering and purchasing health care services that gives physicians and their patients an alternative to the third-party, fee-for-service system. TAFP supports legislation that will improve access to direct primary care by recognizing these arrangements, protecting them, and defining them as outside the scope of state insurance regulation.

Physician workforce and graduate medical education

> The right kind of doctors for Texas: Revisiting barriers to building the primary care workforce, 20 years later
This Texas Family Physician article recalls twenty years ago, when TAFP called for changes in medical education to ensure Texas would have the primary care physician workforce needed to care for a rapidly growing population. Now, the state is in a perilous position as academic institutions have no financial incentive to train new primary care physicians and medical students are actively discouraged from these disciplines.

> GME 101: What you need to know about graduate medical education in Texas
With funding as complex as graduate medical education – part federal, part state, and part institutional support – it is easy to get lost in the explanation. This document is a primer that covers the basics of GME.

Scope of practice

> Physicians tell House Committee: Independent practice for nurse practitioners is the wrong answer for Texas primary care shortage

> The Question of Independent Diagnosis and Prescriptive Authority for Advanced Practice Registered Nurses in Texas: Is the Reward Worth the Risk?

> Primary Care Coalition Issue Briefs — Collaboration Between Physicians and Nurses Works:

• Collaboration Between Physicians and Nurse Practitioners Contains Health Care Costs
• Compare the Education Requirements of Primary Care Physicians and Nurse Practitioners
• Primary Care Physicians Are the Most Likely Health Care Professionals to Practice in Rural and Underserved Areas