The Senate Health and Human Services Committee on Tuesday approved a bill to reform the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas and the “scope-of-practice” bill that would increase the prescriptive power of advanced practice nurses.

Outside of the Capitol, some momentum for Medicaid expansion is building with the state's two largest health care trade associations announcing their support for extending coverage to low-income adults.

Connie Spears, a double amputee, says Texas' tort reform laws obstructed her ability to find a malpractice lawyer and forced a judge to order her to pay thousands of dollars to cover some defendants’ legal bills.

Health care providers in Texas who treat dual eligible patients — those who qualify for both Medicare and Medicaid benefits — will get some relief in 2013. 

First, the state’s Medicaid director announced he was retiring. Now, Health and Human Services chief Tom Suehs says he hasn’t decided whether he will quit in August. Will HHSC rival public education for next session's biggest leadership void?

From contraception and cancer screenings to "Obamacare" and state physician shortages, here's a look at the month ahead in Texas health policy. 

After the state reduced its share of co-payments for Texans who are dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid, doctors who treat such patients are seeing revenue disruptions. 

The doctor performing Gov. Rick Perry's clavicle surgery on Friday happens to be the president of the Texas Medical Association — and a vocal critic of some of the governor's women's health policies. 

State Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, is on a mission to build a standalone medical school in Austin, and he's taking an unconventional route to get there.  

American Medical Association President Peter Carmel and Texas Medical Association President Bruce Malone on the Medicare cuts that physicians face, Texas' legal challenge to federal health reform and efforts to slash funding for Planned Parenthood. 

DAY 22 of our month-long series on the effects of new state laws and budget cuts: Lawmakers slash funding for residency programs in Texas, making it even more difficult for the state to meet its growing physician shortage. 

With the Senate set to debate the state budget this week, Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports that several outside groups want to shape the conversation.

After a fierce fight, the state’s leading physician groups won a change in legislation backed predominantly by Texas chiropractors that could have prevented one health care licensing agency from challenging the ruling of another in court.

Rural hospitals are one step closer to being able to directly hire doctors — something they say is necessary to attract new doctors to rural areas, but is not currently allowed by Texas law.

A Texas law dating back to the 1800s that keeps hospitals from directly hiring doctors comes before lawmakers today, in a flurry of bills designed to remove the ban — either for an individual hospital district, or for all the state's rural hospitals. 

A controversial budget proposal would concentrate the money the state spends on graduate medical residencies into the doctors’ first three years of training — regardless of how long their residencies take to complete.

When a family member dies, accessing bank accounts and collecting on insurance policies requires proper paperwork. Despite a state mandate to process death certificates in a timely fashion, however, doctors are dragging their heels, funeral directors say, leaving survivors in the lurch. 

In Texas, nurse practitioners’ livelihoods are tied to physicians: By law, they can’t treat patients without a doctor’s permission. That means if they want to open their own practice, they must petition, and pay, a doctor to grant them “prescriptive authority” — to essentially keep an eye on their work and, in some cases, to be held liable for it. Doctors say this is as it should be. Nurse practitioners and their allies say doctors don't want the competition and charge them enough to run them out of business. “It borders on an immoral situation,” says state Rep. Wayne Christian, R-Center.