Legislative Updates
Stop the Medicare changes; preserve your access to your doctor
Your Medicare benefits should ensure you have a physician in charge of your care. However, unless Congress acts now, patient access to physician care may be severely impeded. Click on the link below to reach out to
your representative.
Help us stop the Medicare Changes
2025 TMA Legislative Wrap-up
At the heart of the Texas Medical Association’s legislative agenda was protecting the practice of medicine and the patient-physician relationship, whether from interference from insurers and other nonmedical entities, laws that lower the standard of care, or public health threats
The House of Medicine stood fast in its mission to attain results on TMA’s top 10 legislative priorities set by TMA’s Council on Legislation in fall 2024. Legislative wins were hard fought, requiring work from every angle of the association – especially its impressive grass roots. More than 700 physicians, medical students, and alliance members attended First Tuesdays at the Capitol, the association’s premier lobby event. More than 136 physicians showed up to testify and more than 6,800 emails and calls were sent or made to educate lawmakers on key issues. In the end, TMA garnered wins on every top 10 legislative priority. Source: TMA
»See the results of the 2025 TMA/HCMS legislative efforts.
2025 HCMS/TMA Texas Legislative Priorities
Scope of Practice
Protect Patient Care: Don't Remove Physicians from the Health Care Team
Texas must preserve our team-based care framework that puts patient safety first with physician-led care. All patients – regardless of where they live – deserve the same standard of high-quality care from an experienced clinician.
Scope of Practice: Facts vs. Myths
Artificial/Augmented Intelligence (AI)
Legislative Priority: Seek Balanced Regulation of AI
Ensure artificial intelligence (AI) regulation supports physician practices but does not replace physicians or their medical expertise.
Corporate Practice of Medicine
313969_Legi_One_Pager_Corporate_Practice.pdf
Help ensure physicians can exercise professional medical judgment in treating patients without financial or other outside pressures.
Maternal Health
Midwifery In Texas: Ensure Safety and Transparency in Non-Hospital Birth Settings
Based on longstanding data, TMA and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) consider hospitals and accredited birth centers to be the safest places to give birth.
Medical Liability
Legislative Priority: Safeguard Medical Liability Protections
Preserve Texas’ landmark medical liability reforms and prevent new liability risks that threaten access to care.
Medicaid
Help
Texas physicians care for Medicaid patients
Physician Workforce
Grow the Physician Workforce in Texas
Texas should invest in policies and funding to stabilize the physician workforce and grow Graduate Medical Education (GME) so Texas graduates can train in the state and meet the health care needs of our rapidly growing population.
Prior Authorization
Legislative Priority: Enact Comprehensive Prior Authorization Reform
Reform prior authorization and cut down on other burdensome health plan practices that contribute to rising health care costs, threaten the viability of independent medical practices, and compromise patient care.
Telemedicine
Support Payment Parity for Telemedicine: Expand Access to Care with Telemedicine Payment Parity
TMA seeks to improve access to high-quality, physician-led telemedicine care that is covered at the same rate as in-person visits.
Women's Health Care
Improve Women’s Health and Clarify Life-of-the-Mother
Exceptions
Improve funding and supportive services that ensure healthy outcomes for women, mothers, and babies; get clarity on exceptions to the state’s abortion laws so physicians can safely treat pregnant women in crisis while protecting the patient-physician relationship from criminalization.
Rural Health
Protect and Revitalize Access to Rural Texans’ Health Care
Texas’ rural health care continues to face unprecedented financial and demographic pressures.
Additional Legislative Resources
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