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Go to Health Reform School and Earn CME
As part of its campaign to help Texas physicians survive and thrive in the new health care environment, TMA offers Health Reform School.
Sign Petition to Save Medicare
Doctors want to take care of Medicare patients. Congress is forcing doctors to limit the number of Medicare patients we see or to quit taking Medicare patients altogether. Sign the petition by clicking here. Go to Medicare Meltdown Action Center for all the tools you need to get involved.
Medicare Fee Work Far From Finished
Congress reversed the 21.3-percent cut in Medicare payments to physicians in June, but the effort to find a permanent fix for the fee problem continues. (Action, July 1, 2010)
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Learn how new health law affects your practice. Go to Health System Reform Action Center.
Texas Medicare Manifesto II
Every year, for almost a decade, organized medicine and Congress go through the same tedious motions. Physicians plead with Congress: “Fix the faulty funding formula Medicare uses to pay physicians: Make it fair.” The current payment system ensures that hospitals, nursing homes, pharmaceutical companies, Medicare HMOs, and many other Medicare providers receive an automatic cost-of-living increase. Meanwhile, doctors — the frontline people who take care of sick and injured Medicare patients — have to scramble to avoid dramatic pay cuts. Medicare patients, especially the elderly, struggle as more physicians who no longer can afford to take new Medicare patients leave the program. More...
Health System Reform
CHIP
Health Insurance Reform
Medical Student Loan
Medicare
Responsible Ownership
Resources
Related Issues
Last Published: 8/20/2010 Print this page
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Federal Issue BriefsMedicare Meltdown: Today's Reality
To ensure Medicare patients have access to a doctor and to health care, the flawed Sustainable Growth Rate formula must be eliminated and replaced with a rational Medicare physician payment system that is fair and keeps up with the cost of running a practice.
Medicare’s Role in Solving Physician Shortage
An adequate physician workforce is an absolute requirement for ensuring access to care for patients, including Medicare recipients. Medicare GME funding can provide a valuable incentive for teaching hospitals to provide Medicare services.
Protect Texas' Medical Liability Reforms
We must make sure the final health care bill contains plain language clearly stating that the new clinical standards do not create new causes of action and that states’ existing liability reforms, such as Texas’ cap on noneconomic damages in medical liability cases, are not preempted.
Physician Quality Reporting Programs Don't Measure Quality
We urge Congress not to implement any ranking system to evaluate physician performance unless it is based on solid science. Inaccurate information only serves to mislead patients and physicians without improving the quality of care or reducing costs.
Federal Patient Safety Issues
Organized medicine strongly supports and is actively involved in advance patient safety advocacy, education, and programs to assure high quality medical care and patient safety.
Physician and Health Care Professional Workforce Shortage
Congress must help stop the erosion of the health care infrastructure by funding programs that help train health care professionals.
Disaster Preparedness
Federal funds are important for improving and sustaining our disaster preparedness system. Cutting federal funding only weakens current state and local preparedness efforts.
Vaccine Pricing and Payment
Plans must stop looking at vaccines as a “medical loss” but as a means of preventing disease and reducing health care costs.
Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program
Medicaid and CHIP support thousands of health-related jobs, medical education, and physician training. Medicaid cuts threaten the Texas economy and our ability to teach, train, recruit, and retain much-needed health care professionals.
Responsible Ownership of Health Care Services
Promote responsible ownership of all health care facilities, whether owned by a physician, hospital, or other provider.
Border Health Insurance Issues
TMA supports the U.S. Senate Republican Task Force to research a model that will achieve our mutual goal of insuring more border residents without undermining the health care system we are all fighting to protect.
Health Information Technology (HIT)
Texas Medical Association calls for an extensive investment in HIT.
Section 1011 Payment Under EMTALA
TMA is committed to the success of the EMTALA TAG, and undoubtedly believes that it is an important step in maintaining a needed flow of information between the local community and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
Federal Medicaid Reform
For the past decade, TMA has collaborated with state and federal policymakers to develop innovative approaches to reducing costs, including use of disease management, and early detection and treatment of high-cost illnesses.
ERISA Reform
TMA strongly supports ERISA reform at the federal level to promote aggressive requirements for prompt and accurate payments to physicians and other health care service providers.
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