THE WEEKLY DOSE

May 12, 2019

Vol. 8, No. 19

In this Issue
Legislative Update
Physician Written Articles Needed
BCMS Physician & Medical Directory

Support BCMS Circle of Friends Sponsors
SWBC Mortgage
TMLT Offers Improv CME

Legislative Update

86^th Session First Tuesdays now complete

Many thanks to all the BCMS members, Alliance members and medical students who attended the May First Tuesdays visit to the Capitol on May 7. Attendees included: Physicians – John Green, MD, who was serving as Doctor of the Day at the Capitol; Leah Jacobson, MD; Alex Kenton, MD; Sanjiv Kumar, MD; Lubna Naeem, MD; John Nava, MD; John Shepherd, MD and Ezequiel “Zeke” Silva, MD. Alliance members in attendance, were: Carol Growney, Jennifer Lewis and Jenny Shepherd.

In addition, the following medical students from UT Health and UIW School of Medicine (UIWSOM) attended and joined the physicians and Alliance members on visits with the Bexar County legislators and their staffs. From UT Health – Jacob Canfield; Trevor Dickey; Karan Goenka; Lessly Hernandez; Sid Pradeep; Luke Verlinsky; Ryan Wealther and from UIWSOM – Marc Ghosn.

At the time of this writing, there are just 17 days left in the 140-day legislative session. Many of medicine’s bills are still moving through the process and a number of topics were covered during the First Tuesdays visits, including: Medicaid, state budget; mental health; scope of practice; surprise billing; health plan directories; prior authorizations; utilization reviews; maternal health; end of life and Tobacco 21.

For local discussion on these and other legislative advocacy topics, consider joining the BCMS Legislative and Socioeconomics Committee by contacting Mary Nava, chief government affairs officer at mary.nava@bms.org.

Physician Written Articles Needed

The BCMS Publications Committee is seeking article submissions for San Antonio Medicine magazine in the next few months looking at health issues around topics including public health, corporate medicine and transitional medicine.
Click here to see more coming themes.
BCMS members with an interest in those topics and other areas are encouraged to submit articles for consideration. Articles can be informative or advocative in nature, but not self-promotional.

San Antonio Medicine relies on its member doctors for most of its monthly content. Please consider taking advantage of this valuable resource and benefit to members. Articles are due at least one month in advance of the publication date. There is no length requirement, but 500 to 1,000 words is about average.

If you are interested in writing an article, have something to submit or have any questions, please contact Mike Thomas, BCMS Director of Communications, at mike.thomas@bcms.org. All submissions must be approved by the Publications Committee which meets on the first Tuesday of every month in the BCMS building at 4334 N. Loop 1604 W., Ste. 200.

BCMS Physician & Medical Directory

Do you want a printed directory this year?

If so, you need to let BCMS know ASAP because we will only be printing a limited number of hard copies this year. Beginning this year, BCMS will not automatically send each physician member a printed directory. BCMS has enhanced its online “Find a Doctor” directory that is searchable by various criteria (i.e. Name, Specialty, Zip Code, etc.). It can be accessed through www.bcms.org and on the (Bexar County Medical Society) Phone App (available in your app store).

Though many BCMS members do their physician searches online, some still prefer the convenience and usefulness of having a printed directory. We are sending you this note to see if you need or want a new printed directory. As before, each member will be entitled to one free printed directory each year from BCMS.

Please tell us your preference for a printed directory this year by clicking here.

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