Austin family physician named to new position at HHSC

Family medicine has a new champion among state officials. Mark Chassay, M.D., of Austin will become deputy executive commissioner for the Office of Health Policy and Clinical Services as of Jan. 1, 2012. In this newly created position at the state’s Health and Human Services Commission, Chassay will focus on coordinating health and clinical policy to ensure a coordinated approach to medical policy.

“In his new role, Dr. Chassay will oversee the HHSC Office of the Medical Director, Office of e-Health Coordination, Office of Acquired Brain Injury, the Office of Informal Dispute Resolution, and health policy, and he will work closely with the new Texas Health Care Quality Institute,” said HHSC Commissioner Tom Suehs in a statement released in late October.

Chassay previously served as head team physician for the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics at the University of Texas at Austin, coordinating multidiscipline sports health services for over 600 student athletes. In this role, he served as medical director for the training room clinics, and supervised a team of physicians and athletic trainers. He is co-founder of Texas Sports & Family Medicine, PLLC, and has served as president of the Travis County Medical Society.

Chassay has traveled extensively through his involvement with the U.S. Olympic Committee, which began in 2003 when he spent two weeks at the Olympic training center in Chula Vista, Calif. He continued volunteering for other events, serving as a medical officer with USA Baseball and USA Karate at the 2007 Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; chief medical officer for the USOC at the 2005 Paralympic World Cup in Manchester, England; and as a medical officer for the equestrian team at the 2008 summer Olympics in Beijing, China. Most recently, he served as chief medical officer for the Parpan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico, in November 2011, and he has been appointed to serve as chief medical officer for the Paralympics in London, England, in fall 2012.

He earned his medical degree from the University of Texas Medical School at Houston in 1992, and completed a family practice residency at Memorial Hermann Hospital Southwest in Houston in 1995. Then he moved to southern California where he completed a primary care sports medicine fellowship at Kaiser Permanente.

TAFP CEO Tom Banning believes Chassay’s appointment is a welcome sign that state leaders intend to transform Texas’ fragmented health care system into one that provides higher quality, better coordinated, and more efficient care. “This is a tremendous opportunity to really drive system reform and redesign,” says Banning. “I can think of no better person than Mark to lead the charge.”