To best serve medicine’s agenda in the upcoming Texas legislative session, the Texas Medical Association urges members to make and capitalize on relationships with their local representatives, as leadership previewed the likely tumultuous session ahead at the close of TMA’s Business of Medicine Conference last week.
“You need to go meet your legislators,” President G. Ray Callas, MD, said, anticipating that TMA’s top battle in 2025 will again be stopping legislation aimed at granting nonphysicians greater latitude to practice medicine in Texas.
Last month, Dr. Callas testified before the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services during an interim scope-of-practice hearing that was expected after TMA froze out myriad expansion attempts last session.
Such attempts, among others, were snuffed out because of critical relationships Dr. Callas and other TMA physicians had with their local lawmakers. For instance, Clayton Stewart, TMA’s chief lobbyist, shared with audience members how Doug Curran, MD, a past TMA president, contacted his local senator about a Medicaid credentialing issue. Before Mr. Stewart could follow up, the senator’s chief of staff called him asking to know more.
“That is power,” Mr. Stewart said. “When you’ve got a chief of staff of a senator calling the lobbyist saying, ‘Hey, we want to know how to navigate this; we get why this is a problem’ – that is where a relationship takes off.”
TMA monitored 2,158 bills impacting medicine during the 2023 session, and its lobbying team expects a similar volume of proposed legislation in 2025.
In addition to scope creep, TMA expects prior authorization will again be a focus. While TMA was instrumental in passing a pioneering 2021 gold-card law that served as a model for other states, the association seeks additional legislation to better address delays and complications with payer approvals.
Dr. Callas also emphasized the need to protect the patient-physician relationship, and anticipated funding battles to build on TMA’s gains in the last session amid an expected state budget surplus of $21.6 billion.
Both Dr. Callas and Mr. Stewart encouraged physicians to get involved this session, whether by participating in TMA’s First Tuesdays at the Capitol to meet legislators and staffers in person or by reaching out on their own.
“We’re calling on you to call your elected officials, because that personal touch from one of their voters or constituents … makes an entirely huge difference,” Mr. Stewart said.
Dr. Callas encouraged members to prepare for that outreach by reviewing their elected officials’ online biographies before reaching out, in order to better understand and connect with them.
To learn more about First Tuesdays participation and registration, and for the latest on TMA’s advocacy efforts, including interim hearing testimonies, visit TMA’s Advocacy page.
Phil West
Associate Editor
(512) 370-1394
phil.west[at]texmed[dot]org
Phil West is a writer and editor whose publications include the Los Angeles Times, Seattle Times, Austin American-Statesman, and San Antonio Express-News. He earned a BA in journalism from the University of Washington and an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin’s James A. Michener Center for Writers. He lives in Austin with his wife, children, and a trio of free-spirited dogs.