Lifelong Leadership: Distinguished Service Award Bestowed Upon U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess, MD Texas Medicine July 2024

For nearly 50 years, U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess, MD (R-Lewisville), has epitomized the physician legislator.

After graduating from McGovern Medical School at UTHealth in Houston in 1977, he completed his residency at Parkland Hospital in Dallas and then spent 25 years practicing obstetrics and gynecology.

A longtime member of the Texas Medical Association, he ran in 2001 for his first elected office: alternate delegate in the Texas Delegation to the American Medical Association. Buoyed by his success, he went on to run for Congress. With TMA’s support, he won a 2002 election to represent Texas’ U.S. House District 26, north of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.

Since his 2003 swearing-in, Dr. Burgess has risen through the ranks to become a senior member of the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce and formerly chaired the committee’s Health Subcommittee. In these roles, he shepherded landmark health-related legislation through the lawmaking process.

But in November 2023 he announced that he would not seek reelection; his current term ends in January 2025. Looking ahead to retirement, he says his 22-year career in Congress won’t outshine his 25-year career as a practicing physician, which he called the “high point of my life” at TexMed in Dallas on May 3.

There, in recognition of these twin careers, TMA awarded Dr. Burgess its highest honor: the Distinguished Service Award.

TMA President Ray Callas, MD, lauded Dr. Burgess’ sterling reputation and generous mentorship.

“Serving under four [U.S.] presidents, Dr. Burgess has consistently shown outstanding leadership, advocacy, and community service throughout his career as both a public and patient care advocate,” he said at TexMed when he presented the award.

In response, Dr. Burgess attributed his political career to TMA.

“This is a wonderful award, and I am really so appreciative of it, but none of this would have happened without TMA,” he told TexMed attendees. “TMA was there for me.”

As he fulfills his 11th term, Dr. Burgess continues to be there for Texas physicians. He recently advocated for a more robust federal response to the February Change Healthcare cyberattack and continues to recruit support for his bill, the Patient Access to Higher Quality Health Care Act (House Resolution 977), which would end a federal moratorium on physicians owning hospitals.

“We’ve still got work to do, and we will get it done,” he said.

Texas roots

Dr. Burgess hails from a family of physician advocates, a legacy that continues today.

His father, Tim Burgess, MD, was a general surgeon in Denton and his brother, Richard Burgess, MD, a pathologist. His nephew, Jimmy Widmer, MD, is an internist in Temple and the newly elected Young Physician Section representative to the TMA Board of Trustees. Another nephew, Robert Widmer, MD, is an interventional cardiologist in Temple.

During his time in Congress, Dr. Burgess has authored, sponsored, or backed more than 27 health-related laws, shaping the industry to be friendlier to physicians and patients, very often with TMA’s support.

They include the Medicare Provider Payment Modernization Act (MPPMA) of 2015, which repealed the disastrous Sustainable Growth Rate formula that Medicare had used since 1997 to calculate physician payment. Although designed to sustain Medicare with lower costs, the formula resulted in deep annual payment cuts and costly congressional patches to avert them.

With MPPMA’s passage, Dr. Burgess and TMA demonstrated the efficacy of Texas physician advocacy on a national stage and established a playbook for future Medicare payment reform.

To this end, Dr. Burgess has championed a constellation of legislation that would support physicians amid declining Medicare payment and other practice viability threats.

In addition to authoring HR 977, he has pushed for site-neutrality policies, which would ensure consistent Medicare rates regardless of the point of care. Current pay regulations mean hospitals collect much higher fees for the same services compared with independent practices, fueling industry consolidation.

Dr. Burgess also co-sponsored a bill late last year that would have eliminated the 3.4% physician pay cut enacted in the 2024 Medicare fee schedule. Although the bill didn’t pass, Congress ultimately halved the cut in March, and TMA, along with AMA and others in organized medicine, remains laser focused on overhauling Medicare physician payment regulations.

Beyond Medicare, he has supported legislation to improve maternal health outcomes and contributed to the 2016 passage of the 21st Century Cures Act, which funded the National Institutes of Health and advanced biomedical research.

Looking ahead, Dr. Burgess said at TexMed that he still has “gas in the tank” to advance pro-medicine policies.

He also expressed optimism about the future of medicine, citing medical students’ and young physicians’ resolve in the face of well-documented challenges, such as consolidation and increased administrative burden.

“I am so encouraged by the young people that I see be willing ... to be a physician today,” he said. “This generation of physicians that are coming up are going to have tools at their disposal to alleviate human suffering that none before them have ever known.”