Update: Senate Approves Health Payment Reform
Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program could transition to a performance-based, rather than procedure-based, payment model, under bills the Senate unanimously passed today. Full Story
The latest Department of State Health Services news from The Texas Tribune.
Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program could transition to a performance-based, rather than procedure-based, payment model, under bills the Senate unanimously passed today. Full Story
The Congressional budget deal reached in Washington this weekend could have dire implications for Texas’ federally qualified health centers — clinics that provide comprehensive care for the uninsured. Full Story
If congressional Republicans' proposed solution to cutting health care costs — giving states block grants to fund Medicaid — sounds familiar, it’s because it is. Full Story
Visualize the health care and Medicaid cuts in the House version of the proposed 2012-13 state budget, by county and per capita, with data compiled by the Center for Public Policy Priorities. Full Story
The state’s two leading anti-abortion groups — Texas Right to Life and Texas Alliance for Life — agree on where life begins, but not on a law governing how it may come to an end. A house committee will take up the issue today. Full Story
Tenet Healthcare Corp., a Dallas-based hospital company under siege by Community Health Systems, has sued its competitor and potential parent for allegedly overbilling Medicare. Full Story
Some pediatric dentists are bad-mouthing a bill that would allow mobile dental clinics to be paid by Medicaid for sealing the teeth of low-income kids at school. Full Story
Is "family planning" a euphemism for abortion? For many House Republicans, yes. It's not that they don't understand the difference — it's that they don't trust family planning clinics not to steer women toward abortions. Full Story
The House Public Health Committee put its stamp of approval this morning on a much-watered-down version of Rep. Fred Brown's Texas Medical Board bill, a measure designed to protect doctors from unfounded complaints. Full Story
Are Texas doctors hamstrung by unfounded complaints? Reps. Bill Zedler and Fred Brown think so. But the bills they've filed to address the issue are largely opposed by the state's biggest physician organization. Full Story
Lawmakers agree that curbing elective inductions of labor and so-called “convenience” cesarean sections would prevent premature births and save the state money. But how best to do it has left child welfare advocates and hospitals at odds. Full Story
The Texas House started with a $164.5 billion budget and ended with the same total. But lawmakers spent the better part of a weekend making changes inside the budget for 2012-13 before giving it their approval, 98 to 49. Full Story
Deliberation about what to cut — and whom to save — ended with a vote to restore $4.5 billion to state health agencies at a Senate Health and Human Services subcommittee hearing this morning. The issue now goes to the full Senate Finance Committee. Full Story
Health care providers who treat profoundly disabled children at home face major budget cuts this session — cuts they say would devastate their industry and cost the state more in the long run. Full Story
State health officials, searching for solutions to Texas’ budget shortfall, are eying neonatal intensive care units, which they fear are being overbuilt and overused by hospitals eager to profit from the high-cost care. Full Story
The president of Planned Parenthood and daughter of the late Democratic Gov. Ann Richards on Republican lawmakers’ efforts to defund her organization, a Texas attorney general’s opinion she says will keep low-income women from preventative care, and how her mother would’ve handled all of this. Full Story
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. Full Story
With the number of Hispanics in Texas continuing to swell, the Texas Organ Sharing Alliance is embarking on a campaign to change cultural and religious resistance to organ donation. Full Story
A judge has ruled the state may continue its legal challenge against the pharmaceutical company Janssen over allegations it offered officials kickbacks to get a schizophrenia medicine on a preferred drug list. Full Story
In a recent Tribune article, state Rep. Leo Berman alleged that illegal immigrants are bringing infectious diseases into Texas. Is he right? Full Story