The latest Health And Human Services Commission news from The Texas Tribune.
A Houston psychiatrist who uses clinically controversial brain scans to diagnose everything from anxiety to marital discord. A Plano music therapist who believes his Peruvian pan flute tunes cure mental illness. And a Beaumont child psychologist reprimanded for continuing to prescribe to a proven drug abuser. These physicians have written more prescriptions for potent antipsychotic drugs to the state’s neediest patients than any other doctors in Texas. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/medicaid-pills.png)
Grissom, Hamilton, and Philpott on the Texas Democratic Party's state convention, the two-step, the forecast, and the ticket; Galbraith on the political and environmental battle between state and federal environmental regulators, and on a new age of nukes in Texas; Burnson on signs of the times in San Antonio; Ramshaw on hackers breaking into the state's confidential cancer database; Aguilar's interview with Katherine Glass, the Libertarian Party's nominee for governor; Acosta on efforts to stop 'Murderabilia' items that sell because of the association with killers; Ramshaw and the Houston Chronicle's Terri Langford on the criminal arrest records of workers in state-funded foster care centers; Hu on accusations that state Sunset examiners missed problems with workers compensation regulators because they didn't ask the right questions of the right people; Ramsey and Stiles on the rush to rake in campaign cash, and on political races that could be won or lost because of voter attraction to Libertarian candidates; and Aguilar's fresh take on South Texas' reputation for corruption. The best of our best from June 28 to July 3, 2010. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/Tribweek070310.jpg)
The FBI is investigating whether a hacker broke into the state’s confidential cancer database, possibly accessing personal information and medical records. Health and Human Services Commissioner Tom Suehs says state health officials notified his office in early May that a hacker was holding the Texas Cancer Registry hostage and demanding a ransom. Suehs says preliminary investigation results from the FBI indicate the threat may be a hoax but that if private records were compromised, health officials will quickly notify the people listed in the registry. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/patientrecords-hacker002.png)
State Rep. Pete Gallego, D-Alpine, has asked the House Committee on General Investigating and Ethics to review how the Department of Family and Protective Services licenses, reviews and oversees residential treatment centers for foster kids. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/dystarResidential.jpg)
When Texas expanded its Medicaid managed care program in 2003 to cover more than urban centers, the Rio Grande Valley narrowly avoided being included. But as state leaders stare down a multibillion-dollar budget shortfall, they say it’s unlikely the Valley will make it through another session without being roped in. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/20100526-DSC_6299.jpg)
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services has suspended all new placements of foster children at the Daystar Residential Treatment Center outside of Houston, following a Texas Tribune/Houston Chronicle investigation that revealed workers forced young girls to fight each other in return for snacks. Full Story
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. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/deathcertificate.jpg)
The biggest consumer benefit of federal health care reform — adding millions more Americans to insurance rolls — could spell disaster for some public hospitals. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/20100526-DSC_6348.jpg)
The number of Texans working was up in April, but so was the number of people looking for work. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/txemploy20100521.jpg)
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. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/OrrPrudie001.jpg)
Lawmakers said Monday that the state's newborn disease screening program — which has been used to warehouse infant blood samples for biomedical and forensics research — has misled parents and given them few options to protect their babies' DNA. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/030810babyfoot.jpg)
The Texas Medical Association's leadership body voted this weekend to support vaccinating not just young girls but young boys for the human papillomavirus. But organization officials were quick to note that the vote did not include making such vaccines mandatory, which Gov. Rick Perry tried to do for Texas schoolgirls in 2007. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/2015/02/02/vaccine_copy.jpg)
It's an email you'd expect to see taped up at a coffee shop, not sent out from the Department of State Health Services: "Missing Puppy Found!" Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/puppy.jpg)
Former gubernatorial candidate Debra Medina took her free market politics to the Texas Senate on Thursday, sharing a lively debate with lawmakers on the Health and Human Services Committee. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/39449755f6988c89446ef2984dd83fd9/BD%20INC%20GOP%20Debate%20575%202009)
Former HHSC Commissioner Albert Hawkins has a new job — working for the speaker of the Texas House. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/010609_joestraus.jpg)
The wait to get into one of Texas' 10 state mental hospitals — already long — may be about to get longer. Last month, as part of its attempt to comply with Gov. Rick Perry’s request that each state agency reduce its budget by 5 percent, the Department of State Health Services proposed eliminating 50 beds from four of the state's 10 mental hospitals: San Antonio, Rusk, Terrell and North Texas Wichita. The state's mental hospitals are already almost at full capacity, with nearly 2,500 self-admitted patients and allegedly criminal patients awaiting treatment so they can stand trial. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/hospitalbed001.jpg)
The debate over how much federal health care reform will cost Texas put the state’s health and human services chief on the defensive on Wednesday, as he presented a budget estimate that is 20 times higher than federal projections. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/ac59f25ab80de3bd6ef9926a622bfba1/BD%20INC%20Thomas%20Suehs%202010)
Is the health reform price tag in Texas $1.4 billion... or more like $24 billion? State Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, asks HHSC Commissioner Tom Suehs to explain why his agency's estimate is so much higher than a federal estimate. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/videos/Screen_shot_2010-03-31_at_4.22.48_PM.png)
State officials painted a grim picture of how much the federal health care reform will cost Texas, and cautioned lawmakers on Wednesday that the price tag will likely grow. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/103109_medical002_jv.png)
Grissom on the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to stay Hank Skinner's execution, Thevenot on the myth of Texas textbook influence, Rapoport on the wild card who was just elected to the State Board of Education, Ramshaw on the price of health care reform, Philpott on the just-enacted prohibition on dropping kids from the state's health insurance rolls, M. Smith on the best little pole tax in Texas, Ramsey on the first corporate political ad and the reality of 2011 redistricting, Stiles on the fastest-growing Texas counties, Aguilar on the vacany at top of Customs and Border Protection at the worst possible time, Galbraith on the state's lack of renewable energy sources other than wind and its investment in efficiency, and Hu and Hamilton on the runoffs to come in House districts 52 and 127. The best of our best from March 22 to 26, 2010. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/tribweekmarch27-001.jpg)