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messaging” and used surprise billing legisla- Easy Ways to Get Involved in TMA Advocacy
tion as a way to “broadly reduce” physician The 2021 legislative session brings new opportunities to get involved in TMA’s grassroots
payments. advocacy efforts at the Capitol.
Texas Medical Association forts, and we will look to Texas for help as of medicine by joining our advocacy efforts.
“The AMA will continue to fight these ef-
Your participation is a vital component of our legislative success. Please help strengthen the voice
Winter Conference that comes about,” she said. • Participate in First Tuesdays at the Capitol, which are virtual this year. The first one is
tomorrow, Feb. 2. Register today.
And now that vaccinations for COVID-
• Learn more about our top legislative priorities. You can find more detail in January’s issue
19 are available, Dr. Kridel said medicine can
of Texas Medicine.
press ahead on other issues that are plaguing
• Respond to time-sensitive Action Alerts by contacting legislators through our Grassroots
physicians, including eliminating caps on
As one of the most unique eras of both living and lawmaking continues, attendees at TMA’s Winter Conference Action Center. You’ll receive Action Alerts via email and can respond right from
Medicare payments. your phone.
heard about medicine’s legislative agenda in both Austin and Washington, D.C.,
“Through our arcane payment system – • Read TMA’s Legislative Hotline in your daily Texas Medicine Today. If you miss it in
and how COVID-19 has helped shape this year’s legislative focus.
and it’s nothing else but that – physicians are your inbox, you can also find it online.
singled out and paid differently than hospi- • Follow us on social media via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.
tals, nursing homes among other facilities, • Learn more about TEXPAC to help elect medicine-friendly candidates to office.
TMA President Diana Fite, MD, led a and elderly patients, it’s “hard to arrange in professionals. and the pharmaceutical industry, which all
panel Saturday of three other physicians and some rural areas where they don’t have ac- “There’s some really good news in health get cost-of-living … increases yearly,” he said. Stay up to date on TMA’s progress in the legislature. And take advantage of other opportunities
one legislator in the state and federal cru- cess,” Dr. Fite noted. “We did get approval in care. But … our focus has to be on post-pan- “It just has to stop, and we need to demand to get involved with our advocacy efforts.
cibles: Austin oncologist Debra Patt, MD, some places for telephonic-only (telemedi- demic recovery, lessons learned making sure change.”
chair of TMA’s Council on Legislation; Fort cine visits), because some people are not set that we have protection for you doctors who
Worth allergist Susan R. Bailey, MD, presi- up to be able to do visual as well. But we need have given us so much over the last 11
dent of the American Medical Association to have telemedicine to remain at parity for months, and making sure, too, that you get to
(AMA); Houston plastic surgeon Russ full clinic visits as well for payment purposes, practice at the top of your credentials, while
Kridel, MD, chair of the AMA Board of and including after the pandemic is over.” making sure that others don’t try to creep into
Trustees; and state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst (R- Stressing the burdens of prior authorization that and we see a dip in what we think is qual-
Brenham), chair of the Texas Senate Com- – and the fact a lot of those hassles increased ity health care,” she said.
mittee on Health & Human Services. during the pandemic – Dr. Patt listed several Dr. Patt emphasized to attendees that dur-
The Winter Conference also included a • Reducing red tape, such as by requiring ing the current session of the Texas Legisla-
discussion by two top state health officials state-regulated health plans to “gold-card” ture, “what we need is you [physicians] to be
on Texas’ COVID-19 vaccination efforts. certain physicians out of the prior-auth active in your constituency and make sure
process; that you’re reaching out to important leaders
State legislative priorities • Requiring insurers to make staff available like Senator Kolkhorst and others.”
Drs. Fite and Patt outlined TMA’s priori- around the clock and on weekends to
ties at the state level, which include expanding process pre-approval requests ; and The National Picture
health coverage to address the problem of the • Reforming peer-to-peer calls so physicians Laying out some of the landscape at the
state’s uninsured and underinsured; reducing who must make them are talking to an ac- national level, Dr. Bailey said AMA’s federal
the impact and red tape of prior authoriza- tual “peer” who knows something about priorities include the recent surprise-billing
tion; improving patient access to care through their specialty. restrictions passed by Congress that will take
further advancement of telemedicine; and effect in 2022, and pushing back against
avoiding a now-delayed tax on medical billing Senator Kolkhorst ran through some of scope-of-practice reaches by nonmedical
companies, which would inevitably result in what’s in the Senate’s base budget pro- professionals.
costs passed onto physicians. posal, Senate Bill 1, and also discussed the Dr. Bailey said AMA will be deeply en-
While telemedicine made “leaps and importance of giving physicians full, lawful gaged in the regulatory process on the new
bounds” during COVID, and has been found practice autonomy while stopping scope- surprise-billing law. In several states, she said,
to be very advantageous for many disabled of-practice infringements by nonmedical legislators “have adopted the health insurers’

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