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Legislative Priorities – 86th Session

Improve Access to Care and Increase the Healthcare Workforce
  • Continue development of telehealth to improve delivery of quality care at a fraction of the cost
  • Increase the number of school-based clinics to deliver pediatric/ family health care in close proximity to education.
  • Limit Medicaid funding cuts.
  • Incorporate more funding for intergenerational health services within the Medicaid program.
  • Automatically enroll women aging out of Medicaid onto the HTW program.
  • Maintain funding for Graduate Medical Education primary care through the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.
Decrease Maternal Morbidity in Texas:
  • Maintain funding for the Healthy Texas Women and Family Planning programs, which provide women with preventive health services, including well-woman exams, contraceptives, cancer screenings, and treatment for illnesses such as hypertension and diabetes.
  • Improve access to long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs).
  • Improve data collection and analysis on women’s health to clarify understanding of the incidence of maternal mortality and to guide our e orts to reduce maternal mortality and severe maternal morbidity.
  • Improve the general health of women by increasing access to primary health services in as many ways as possible, including optimizing the use of the Texas Medicaid program.
Improve Access to Mental and Behavioral Health Care in Texas:
  • Preserve funding for mental health care across the state of Texas.
  • Utilize more integrated behavioral health models to provide both mental and physical health care
  • Utilization of telemedicine to make mental health care more accessible.
  • Maintain Graduate Medical Education funding to continue the pipeline of trainees providing mental health to future Texans. Continue to grow the loan repayment program, an evidence-based program to bring more mental health providers to the underserved Texas population.
  • Implement/ fund school-based mental health services.
  • Address the opioid crisis and all substance abuse in Texas.
Improve Access to Mental Health Care for Women With Postpartum Mood Disorders:
  • Extend Medicaid for Pregnant Women coverage to one-year post-childbirth while HTW becomes more established among Texas providers.
  • Broaden coverage within HTW to cover more comprehensive care for perinatal mood disorders such as postpartum anxiety and postpartum psychosis.
  • Expand care options for patients with perinatal mood disorders.
Improve Anti-human Trafficking Policy
  • Implement primary prevention strategies in high-risk youth including interventions in the foster care system.
  • Improve healthcare access and funding for human trafficking victims by establishing a medical home.
  • Set aside convictions of victims of human trafficking for non-violent crimes committed as a direct result of trafficking.
Promote Wellness to Combat Obesity in Texas
  • Have districts develop a locally determined school recess policy and establish a state working group for best practice guidelines on recess.
  • Implement comprehensive wellness reform in Texas schools.
  • Reimburse health care providers for lifestyle/ obesity counseling.
Improve Immunization Rates in Texas
  • Reverse 2017 legislation that prevents healthcare providers from immunization children in temporary foster care.
  • Increase education and access to cancer-preventing vaccines such as the HPV vaccine.
  • Increase access to adult immunizations.
  • Make improvements to the Texas immunization registry.
  • Provide rates of unvaccinated children in schools and school districts to assist parental choice.
Address Immigrant and Refugee Health
  • Designate hospitals and clinics as safe spaces.
  • Ensure proper treatment of children at the Texas border.
  • Address the healthcare worker shortage through an expedited process for credentialing individuals who completed medical training abroad.

*Additional updates to come

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