New Sept. 1 Laws To Bring Relief To Texas Patients
September 2, 2007 – 11:47 am | posted in Health InsuranceSept. 1 is an important day for scores of Texans suffering without health insurance, as Texas’ new laws take effect to ease their pain.
Bills that aim to insure more Texans, reform health insurance abuses, improve health care information transparency, increase the use of health information technology, and launch worksite wellness plans all become law Sept. 1.
“Texas lawmakers really stepped up to the plate for Texas patients, and we couldn’t be more thrilled about that,” said William W. Hinchey, MD, president of the Texas Medical Association (TMA).
Dr. Hinchey worked alongside TMA physician colleagues to diagnose Texas’ health problems and prescribe treatments at several meetings prior to the 2007 legislative session. TMA’s Healthy Vision 2010 Summits assembled physician, business, government, and other health care leaders to study what ailed Texas. TMA Healthy Vision 2010 Summit participants prioritized urgent health care issues, including the alarming number of Texas’ uninsured and the need for better wellness promotion and disease prevention. “Texas is a national leader of uninsured children and adults. It’s an issue that’s languished on the table for too long, so we decided somebody - Texas physicians and enlightened legislators - had to do something to help solve it,” said Dr. Hinchey.
The more than 40 participants developed and shared with state legislators many recommendations for how to reduce the number of uninsured Texans, and encourage wellness and disease prevention activity. One example is what some see as flagship legislation by Sen. Jane Nelson (R-Lewisville), which adopted the summit participants’ recommendations to tackle the uninsured problem and wrote them into law.
Patient-friendly bills that become law on Sept. 1 include the following.
Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) Reforms:
– Senate Bill 10 by Senator Nelson: Maximizes state and federal aid to help insure more low-income Texans; trims Medicaid costs by promoting illness prevention and healthier lifestyles; shares costs among business, government, and health care groups (”three-share” programs) to help expand insurance coverage to small-business employees; directs the state health department to create positive incentive programs - e.g., for smoking cessation or weight loss - to promote healthier lifestyles among Medicaid clients; and urges health maintenance organizations (HMOs) and other Medicaid health care payment plans to provide more preventive health services to their enrollees. SB 10 also adopted provisions of House Bill 2610 by Rep. Dianne Delisi (R-Temple) that modernize the Medicaid system by implementing health information technology, and House Bill 3471, also by Representative Delisi, creating a pilot program to provide health information technology, including electronic health records, to high-volume primary care physicians participating in Medicaid.
– House Bill 2042 by Rep. Dawnna Dukes (D-Austin): Provides for an electronic database of physicians and health care professionals who participate in Medicaid.
– House Bill 109 by Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-Houston) and Sens. Kip Averitt (R-Waco) and Leticia Van de Putte (D-San Antonio): Restores many of the enrollment and eligibility restrictions placed on CHIP in 2003. The bill also extends 12 months’ coverage to eligible children. More than 120,000 Texas children should gain health insurance as a result.
Health Insurance Reform:
– Senate Bill 1731 by Sen. Robert Duncan (R-Lubbock): Ensures that employers, their employees, and Texas patients have access to health care information about medical service costs and patient out-of-pocket expenses. The bill is an important first step toward ensuring transparency in the health care market.
– House Bill 1594 by Rep. John Zerwas, MD (R-Richmond): Requires physicians joining a medical group established in a health plan’s network to be recognized as network members while the plan is processing their credentials. TMA believes Texas needs new physicians to see patients as quickly as possible, and this ensures patients are not billed as if they had seen an out-of-network physician while the new physician is being credentialed.
– Senate Bill 1255 by Senator Averitt: Reinstates the ability of both large and small employers to participate within the same health cooperative. Such co-ops of large and/or small employers of an industry can be considered a single employer for insurance underwriting purposes, cutting costs.
– House Bill 3064 by Representative Delisi: Regulates discount health care programs that offer patients direct access to health care products and services.
Worksite Wellness:
House Bill 1297 by Representative Delisi: Creates a statewide worksite wellness advisory committee to help public and private companies implement programs. The bill also creates a worksite wellness program for state employees.
Immunizations:
Senate Bill 811 by Sen. Kyle Janek, MD (R-Houston): Requires the Texas Department of State Health Services to allow physicians in the federal Vaccines for Children Program to select any influenza vaccine from the federal list.
Health Information Technology:
House Bill 1066 by Representative Delisi: Allows more doctors to participate voluntarily in electronic data sharing. It also initializes a system of data exchanges including patient insurance verification; coverage; physicians’ network coverage; and eventually, real-time claims adjudication.
TMA is the largest state medical society in the nation, representing more than 42,000 physician and medical student members. It is located in Austin and has 120 component county medical societies around the state. TMA’s key objective since 1853 is to improve the health of all Texans.
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