BILL ANALYSIS

S.B. 1225

By: Huffman

Public Health

Committee Report (Unamended)

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Current law authorizes the Texas Medical Board to issue faculty temporary licenses to physicians who do not hold a license to practice medicine in Texas and hold a medical degree, are licensed to practice medicine in another state or Canadian province, or have completed at least three years of postgraduate residency.

A temporary license allows an eligible physician to practice medicine solely within the confines of the medical school and its affiliates for one year.  State law establishes eligibility and licensing requirements for temporary licenses.

S.B. 419, 79th Legislature, Regular Session, 2005, created a gap in the availability of faculty temporary licenses in Texas by authorizing Texas medical schools to obtain temporary licenses for their faculties.  Accredited graduate medical education programs operated by Texas hospitals and nonprofit health organizations were indirectly excluded from obtaining these temporary licenses.

S.B. 1225 provides temporary faculty licenses to certain faculty working at institutions, including institutional sponsors of accredited graduate medical education programs and non-profit health corporations that are affiliated with sponsors of those accredited graduate medical education programs to bring more skilled teaching physicians to Texas.  The increased number of teaching physicians will allow for greater numbers of new physicians to be trained, resulting in more doctors and better patient care.

RULEMAKING AUTHORITY

It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly grant any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution.

ANALYSIS

S.B. 1225 amends the Occupations Code to clarify the requirement that a physician hold a salaried faculty position at certain institutions to be issued a temporary license to practice medicine by the Texas Medical Board to require the physician to hold a position equivalent to at least the level of assistant professor and be working full-time at one of a list of specified institutions.

S.B. 1225 adds to that list of qualifying institutions an institutional sponsor of a graduate medical education program accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education and a certified nonprofit health corporation affiliated with such a program.  

S.B. 1225 clarifies that an application for a temporary license to practice medicine that is required to be made by the chairman of the department of the institution in which the physician teaches may also be made by the person holding the equivalent position at the institution where the physician teaches.

EFFECTIVE DATE

On passage, or, if the act does not receive the necessary vote, the act takes effect September 1, 2009.