The latest Health And Human Services Commission news from The Texas Tribune.
Along the Texas-Mexico border, colonias residents tell identical stories: of migrating with dreams of safety and prosperity, of getting swindled into buying worthless land, of sticking it out so their children will get educated. And of getting sick. Full Story
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Conditions have clearly improved in Texas' colonias since devious developers first established them for migrant workers in the 1950s. But many efforts have fallen short, the result of bureaucratic nightmares and a spiral of confusion and fees. Full Story
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Companies that provide intensive in-home care to patients who might otherwise be in nursing homes could face big cuts under a cost-saving budget proposal the Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) will consider today. Full Story
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A glitch in the federal health reform bill that would make many middle-class Americans eligible for Medicaid could cost Texas nearly $90 million a year by 2017, according to a state analysis. Full Story
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Children on Medicaid under the age of three will not be prescribed powerful anti-psychotic drugs without a special authorization, under new rules the state Health and Human Services Commission implemented last week. Full Story
The Department of Assistive and Rehabilitative Services said today that the personal data of about 4,900 current and former state employees may have been exposed in a security breach. Full Story
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State lawmakers have fired back against a Federal Trade Commission letter suggesting Senate Bill 8 — a key piece of Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst's health reform push — violates antitrust laws. The measure is expected to come up for a vote in the House on Tuesday. Full Story
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For the third session in a row, legislation covering end-of-life care in Texas appears, well, dead. Full Story
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The residency programs that train Texas family physicians will take a big hit under the education budget agreement lawmakers unveiled today. Full Story
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The budget that state lawmakers are poised to accept attempts to eliminate wide variations in what hospitals are paid by Medicaid for performing the same procedures on similarly sick patients — a sweeping change in how Texas hospitals are funded. Full Story
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The Federal Trade Commission is warning that one of the key health care reform bills trumpeted by Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, could substantially harm consumers. Full Story
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Texas medical schools feel like the scorned children of the state’s education budget. Lost amid the pleas of parents to restore funding for public education, and the demands of college students to preserve financial aid, the state’s health care institutions say few seem to understand the drastic situation they face. Full Story
The emails and memos written by administrators and doctors at Victoria's Citizens Medical Center about three of their colleagues of Indian descent are, at best, derogatory. At worst, they could be seen as racist — and they're the subject of a sweeping discrimination suit. Full Story
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Facing an estimated 28 percent reduction in funds to care for medically fragile children, in-home nursing companies say they could be forced to shut their doors, or else dramatically slash what they pay nurses. Full Story
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Texas' Women's Health Program may be circling the drain. Sen. Bob Deuell says he doesn’t have the votes in the Senate to bring up a bill to renew the family planning and preventative care program — and Rep. Garnet Coleman says his House bill is stuck. Full Story
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According to researchers, Texas taxpayers would save about $57 million per year if the state cut its teen birth rate. But as Gretch Sanders of KUT News reports, proposed legislation to curb the state’s teen pregnancy problem — and save taxpayer dollars — hasn’t gotten much traction. Full Story
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Every 10 minutes a teen in Texas gets pregnant, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. With groups observing the 10th Annual National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy today, Gretch Sanders of KUT News reports on the search for ways to bring that rate down. Full Story
State Rep. Lois Kolkhorst’s bill to further protect Texans’ private medical information looks stuck; it’s been three weeks since it passed out of committee, and it hasn’t yet been set for a House vote. Full Story
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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
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. Full Story
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