TMA EVPGram

More than 100 TMA Alliance members, medical students, and physicians of all specialties gathered to plan joint strategies for the 2011 Texas Legislature. The expected $20-billion-plus state budget deficit and how medicine should deal with it dominated many discussions. When representatives of state specialty societies laid out their legislative priorities, a few trends emerged:

• Many specialties expect nonphysician practitioners to push for unsafe expansions of their scope of practice, and they called on all of medicine to work together to fight those battles.
• There was strong support for TMA’s call to defend the ban on corporate practice of medicine.
• Many physicians said patients benefit when offices can own their own labs, imaging equipment, and outpatient facilities.

We'll take all of that input, and more, into consideration as we draft TMA’s 2011 agenda over the next few weeks. By the way, have you registered for First Tuesdays at the Capitol yet?