• TOA President's Update: Get Active! Texas

• State Searching For a New Workers' Comp Commissioner Replacement

• This Week In Texas: Mignon McGarry Memos

• Physician Ownership Attacks Continue

 
TOA President's Update: Get Active! Texas
  

By Timothy L. Beck, MD President, Texas Orthopaedic Association   Get Active! Texas is a public health campaign designed to encourage daily physical activity which is so essential to good musculoskeletal health. Because movement promotes healthy bones and serves as an obesity preventative, the Texas Orthopaedic Association's goal is to educate the citizens of Texas of how activity affects a person's health.

Donna Parker, TOA/TOF EVP and Lisa Stark Walsh of the Texas Medical Association Foundation recently met with staff from the Texas Education Agency (TEA), the Coordinated Approach to Child Health (CATCH), UT School of Public Health, Susan and Michael Dell Foundation and with volunteers from Partnership for a Healthy Texas. TMAF has worked with these organizations in the past regarding childhood obesity issues and now the Get Active! Texas campaign will join this effort.

TOA and the Texas Orthopaedic Foundation have offered to assist in this important mission to fight childhood obesity. The amount of exercise a person gets - from the beginning of childhood– can affect weight, bones, and life long behavior patterns. Orthopaedic surgeons are asked to share information with their communities and to encourage parents to become more aware of recent studies.

Texas Education Agency findings from a physical fitness assessment of Texas students in grades 3-12 found that elementary-age children are the most physically fit. However, after elementary school, fitness levels declined with each passing grade level. TEA correlated declining fitness with decreasing emphasis on physical education in upper grades in Texas schools. For more TEA information, please click here.

A 2007 report from Trust for America's Health found that Texas ranked sixth among states with the highest obesity rate for children ages 10-17. The report found that 19.1 percent of Texas children in this age group were considered obese.

During the 2007 Texas legislative session, Senate Bill 530 (sponsored by Sen. Nelson and Rep. Rob Eissler) not only brought about the physical fitness assessment in Texas schools but it also required "moderate or vigorous" physical activity for students in kindergarten through fifth grade. Beginning this fall, students in sixth through eighth grade will be required to participate in a physical activity period for at least four of six semesters.

It is important to note that while this legislation mandated that Texas school districts comply with SB530, no state funds were supplied for this statewide physical fitness assessment or the additional physical education criteria. About $2.5 million in private funds was raised to cover the first two years of operation.
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State Searching For a New Workers' Comp Commissioner Replacement
    

By Michael Reed, Director of Managed Care Delivery Systems Texas Medical Association With less than one month to go before Workers' Compensation Commissioner Albert Betts leaves the Texas Division of Workers'

Compensation, rumors continue to circulate regarding whom Gov. Rick Perry will name to replace him. The governor's office continues to remain silent about the search for Betts' successor, who will be named by Gov. Perry but will also face confirmation by the Texas Senate. Commissioner Betts announced June 3 that he was resigning as workers' compensation commissioner, effective Aug. 31. Betts did not indicate what his future plans might be, other than to say in an e-mail to division employees that he intended to "pursue other interests." Betts, when he departs, will have headed the division for three years. Perry appointed Betts as the first commissioner of the division, effective Sept. 1, 2005. The agency was created on that date under House Bill 7. The reform measure, passed in 2005, abolished the Texas Workers' Compensation Commission and replaced it with the DWC as part of the Texas Department of Insurance. Commissioner Betts is to be praised for his efforts to promulgate and implement regulations needed to effect the reforms adopted by the State Legislature under HB 7 as well as adopting an improved medical fee guideline for non-network workers' compensation patients. From 2003 to 2008, the medical fee guideline was 125% of Medicare. Commissioner Betts adopted a medical fee guideline in 2008 that included multiple conversion factors and improved workers' compensation rates to 140% of Medicare for most codes and 174% of Medicare for surgeries performed in facilities. More importantly, the new fee guideline established a Texas specific conversion factor that no longer coincides with Medicare fluctuations and established "critical access shortage areas" whereby physicians receive a 10% payment incentive for delivering services in the zip codes designated as "critical access shortage areas." Commissioner Betts can be reached via email by clicking here. [top] [back to e-card archive page]

This Week In Texas: Mignon McGarry Memos

Physician Ownership Attacks Continue
    

The attacks continue on physician ownership. While constantly changing, this is an attempt to catch you up on all that has occurred over the last several weeks regarding physician ownership. As you are most likely aware, Congress overrode the President's veto of Medicare legislation in mid July, averting a 10.6% cut in physician payment. TOA members worked with the AAOS, AMA, TMA and Congressional champions and other allies to keep limitations on physician owned hospitals out of the bill.

Attention has again focused on the mental health parity legislation, which is now in a House-Senate conference to resolve differences between the two versions of the bill. Agreement has been reached on most of the substantive issues, except for the offsets or "pay-fors". The House version used the physician owned hospital language as an offset to the costs of the parity legislation. A number of Members have resisted efforts to include this provision in the final package. The latest development is that Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) introduced a new bill, (S. 3033) that addresses some rural Medicare issues and, once again, uses the physician ownership provision as an offset or "pay-for". However, another Medicare bill is unlikely to move this year so the legislation would have to be attached to some other "must pass" bill. Nonetheless, while action on the Grassley package may be remote, the threat should be taken seriously. Congress adjourned for the August break without resolving the mental health bill or the physician ownership issue. This is an excellent time for TOA members to reinforce the message of quality, efficiency and safety that has been the cornerstone of the argument against limitations on ownership. Congress returns in September for the last few weeks of the session before leaving to campaign for the November elections. A lame duck session remains unlikely. [top] [back to e-card archive page]

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