Filtered by author: Emily Armstrong Clear Filter

FECs Added to Baby Moses Bill

Senate Bill 1279, carried by Sen. Donna Campbell and Sen. Jane Nelson, along with House Bill 3126, carried by Rep. Geannie Morrison, are new pieces of legislation that seek to add freestanding emergency centers (FECs) to the list of “designated emergency infant care providers.” The bills require that FECs examine and provide emergency medical services to any abandoned child taken into its possession.

Rep. Morrison’s original bill was established to address an alarming increase in newborns being abandoned in perilous places. The mission of the project is to publicize a confidential, and safe alternative to newborn abandonment.

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Sponsor Highlight: Xite

 

Santee Hathaway, Michael Tatum, Patrick Valentz and Tommy Newton founded Xite Realty for one main purpose: to help physicians because they help us.

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SB 425 Testimony – Rhonda Sandel of Texas Emergency Care

Good morning. My name is Rhonda Sandel and I represent TAFEC, the Texas Association of Freestanding Emergency Centers. Our association is opposed to Senate Bill 425.

The Association represents 157 independently licensed Freestanding Emergency Centers, comprising over 80 percent of the industry. Our member facilities have contributed approximately 20 million dollars annually to the state and local governments, and employ over 7,000 Texans.

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CSSB 425 Hearing Recap: Senate Business and Commerce Committee

Today, the Senate Business and Commerce committee considered Senate Bill 425, which addresses billing transparency and mediation for freestanding emergency centers (FECs). The Association of Freestanding Emergency Centers (TAFEC) was well represented at the hearing, with three members providing oral testimony to the committee.

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SB 425 Testimony – John McGee of ER Centers of America

Good morning Chairman Eltife and members of the committee.

My name is John McGee. My partner and I own two freestanding emergency medical facilities in the Dallas area, and have one under construction in Lubbock. We have operated freestanding facilities since 2007. I am here to testify against Senate Bill 425.

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A Day In The Life: Brian Aldred

This is one post in an going series entitled, “A Day in the Life on an FEC Physician.” Every month one physician from a TAFEC member facility will describe the ins and outs of their profession – highlighting their daily operations, patient interactions, and job-related challenges – in order to paint a better picture of what emergency care in an FEC setting truly looks like.


Brian Aldred, MD, FACEP
Medical Director Five Star ER

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Member Highlight: Nick Peters

From the corporate world to the trenches of the Emergency Department, Nick Peters, MD FACEP has found a home in freestanding emergency centers with Advance ER. Serving the Dallas communities of the Park Cities and North Dallas with the first two sites, Advance ER is excited for continued expansion.

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Sponsor Highlight: EPOWERdoc

EPOWERdoc is a healthcare software and documentation solutions company based in Omaha, NE and has over 20 years of experience in providing the fastest premium template and EMR documentation solutions for the Hospital based ED and Freestanding Emergency Center. EPOWERdoc was created by Wes Grigsby, MD, FACEP, Chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Creighton University. He was joined by David Ernst, MD, FACEP in 2004 and together they assembled a team of ED Nurses and Physicians with the best software programming talent available to create the EMRDoc Emergency Department Information System (EDIS) around the challenging workflow of the ED.

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A Patient's Guide to FEC Billing

As the freestanding emergency care industry continues to expand in Texas, TAFEC wants to ensure that consumers are well aware of the emergency care options available to them, as well as their varying levels of service.

Cost Confusion Between Freestanding Emergency Centers (FECs) and Urgent Care Facilities

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TAFEC February Recap Newsletter

FEBRUARY 5 MEETING RECAP

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Three-month Grace Period Under the ACA & Texas Law

 Brett Johnson, JD, MPH, MS

By: Brett Johnson, JD, MPH, MS, Center for Medical and Regulatory Policy, California Medical Association, Sacramento, CA

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A Guide to Avoiding Narcotic Trouble

By: Christopher M. Dembny R.Ph.

One of the first places that all the regulatory and accreditation agencies look is controlled substance documentation.  While avoidance of drug diversion is of the utmost importance to all, many people get in trouble over their record keeping even when no diversion problem exists.  The following is a checklist of things you should make sure are in place so that you don’t get in trouble over paperwork.  You need to make sure you have them AND know where they are.  It is not a good feeling to know that you have been doing things correctly and not be able to find them when requested by a Board of Pharmacy or DEA agent.  Please make sure you have these items documented correctly and available if asked to produce them.

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FAIR Health: Is It the Future of Health Care Pricing?

By: TAFEC

Last month, we talked about how the Texas Department of Insurance (TDI) added a provision in the new PPO network adequacy rule that mandates commercial health insurance plans to base out-of-network provider reimbursements on a usual and customary method when an in-network provider is not available in the region or if it is for out-of-network emergency care.  This is one of the first instances in which the state government has mandated a usual and customary rate.

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BAYLOR TO OPEN FIRST-OF-ITS-KIND-CENTER IN COLLIN COUNTY

Healthcare.DMagazine.com
By: Bradford Pearson
January 30, 2014

The new Baylor Emergency Medical Center at Murphy opens next week as the first center of its kind from Baylor in Collin County, an emergency hospital open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and staffed with emergency medicine physician specialists and experienced nursing and clinical staff.

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GORMON: SENATE BILL 016 A BOOST TO HEALTH CARE CRONYISM IN COLORADO

GreenleyTribune.com
By: Linda Gorman
January 29, 2014

In 2013, University of Colorado School of Medicine researchers concluded that people covered by Medicaid and Medicare use emergency rooms because they lack timely access to primary care. Thanks to the Colorado legislators who voted to expand Colorado Medicaid, an estimated 275,000 more people will ultimately enroll in the program, according to estimates by the Colorado Health Foundation.

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TEXAS GETS NEAR-FAILING GRADE ON EMERGENCY CARE REPORT CARD

Three Categories Have F Grade

KXAN.com
January 17, 2014

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Texas is sliding, in the view of American College of Emergency Physicians.
A new report card has the state falling in rank from 29th to 38th based on the environment for emergency care.

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AMERICA’S EMERGENCY CARE ENVIRONMENT, A STATE-BY-STATE REPORT CARD – 2014

Texas

While Texas continues to provide a model Medical Liability Environment  and has made great improvements in Disaster Preparedness, it still struggles with significant threats to Public Health and Injury Prevention, as well as severe financial barriers in Access to Emergency Care. Download the full report here.

EMERGENCY VISITS SEEN INCREASING WITH HEALTH LAW

NYTimes.com
By: Sabrina Tavernise
January 2, 2014

Supporters of President Obama’s health care law had predicted that expanding insurance coverage for the poor would reduce costly emergency room visits because people would go to primary care doctors instead. But a rigorous new experiment in Oregon has raised questions about that assumption, finding that newly insured people actually went to the emergency room a good deal more often.

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STAND-ALONE EMERGENCY ROOMS BOOMING

KVUE.com
By: Ashley Boudeau
October 10, 2013

AUSTIN -- The Austin Emergency Center (AEC) is not your average emergency room. But it is a fully equipped, 24-hour ER.

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