During the 2025 Legislative session Representative Oliverson introduced legislation that would create two new pathways to licensure. The first pathway lessened the requirements for International Medical School graduates. And the second pathway was for medical school graduates who failed to Match. The two pathways will not be available until after January 2026. Rep Oliverson’s bill provides the Texas Medical Board time to develop rules and applications for the two new pathways. Needless to say the TMB staff has quite a bit of work to do. I’ll be watching the development of the rules closely. If you would like to be added to my contact list of physicians and non-physicians interested in these two new license types just drop me an email and I’ll keep you updated. Denise Meyer denise.meyer@gandmconsult.com

Most assuredly Dr. Steven Berk would be so happy to find that other medical schools are following a path that he established long ago in Texas. For medical student to be able to finish in three years and provide the much needed primary care physicians that Texas, Arizona and other states desperately need is a dream come true. Dr. Berk passed in May 2023, devastating the Texas Tech as well as the physician community throughout Texas and beyond. I remember visiting with Dr. Berk in Lubbock as the plan to begin the three year primary care route at Texas Tech Lubbock was coming to fruition. The plan was genius. Best of luck to the Arizona medical schools!!

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/quality/hospital-physician-relationships/2-arizona-med-schools-open-3-year-degree-programs

Tomorrow is probably the second most stomach turning day for any medical student – it’s Match Day – March 15, 2024 – every student participating in Match will be anxiously awaiting news that the residency program they desire also desires them. Congratulations to all the new residents – tomorrow!!

The Texas Medical Board’s latest bulletin is full of news related to licensure. FY2023 saw another increase in licenses issued – a record 7,060 licenses. And the Interstate Compact process saw 1,607 licenses issued. Texas now has over 100,000 licensees. This is an incredible milestone given the changes Licensure staff had to endure in moving from all hands on deck to licensure staff spread across Texas. Kudos to Grace Unterborn and staff for continuing amazing work. The average processing days remain around 28 days.

Let’s address this 28 day processing time. As most applicants will tell you it takes way longer than 28 days to have their application processed. The 28 day processing time does not include the number of days that an applicant sits in Screen. Although a great idea many legislative sessions ago it has become glaringly obvious that staff members in Screen have taken on a greater role of analyst, reviewing documents as opposed to checking them of LIST. This can be very helpful if the Screen staff member is somewhat senior but many times adds unwarranted delays. I have addressed this with Licensure management but to no avail. I’ll continue to push for change in this area come the 2025 legislative session.

So here at G&M Consulting we will continue to stay on top of changes not only in law and rule but also in process at the board.

In the latest article found in Becker’s Hospital Review Texas ranks third in the United States with the number of medical school graduates. The reported data comes from 2022 reports listing a total number of new medical school graduates, allopathic and osteopathic at 28,753. New York continues to rank first with 2,628, Pennsylvania in second with 1,902 and Texas third with 1,897 medical school graduates. When I joined the Texas Medical Board back in 1985 Texas only had eight medical schools. Today in 2023 Texas now has sixteen, thirteen allopathic and three osteopathic. The newest schools located in Huntsville, Fort Worth, San Antonio and the latest will be in Tyler. Of these four locations two of the schools are allopathic and two are osteopathic. The growth of medical schools has been exciting but there is still a great need for more post graduate training in Texas. It will be exciting to see Becker’s numbers in the future as Texas continues to be a hot bed for medical education!

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/rankings-and-ratings/states-ranked-by-total-medical-school-graduates-in-2022.html

On June 15, 2023 Governor Greg Abbott ended the Covid 19 waivers related to physicians. The Texas Medical Board will be working to notify those physicians holding such temporary licenses that within the next 30 days they will need to make other arrangements regarding their continued practice in Texas. Below you will find the Texas Medical Board’s press release. Please call G&M Consulting at 888-400-1580 if you have questions or concerns regarding your eligibility to practice in Texas.

Statewide COVID-19 Disaster Expiration

Governor Abbott’s statewide disaster declaration related to the COVID-19 pandemic expired on June 15, 2023. As a result, ALL rule waivers are no longer active as of this date. 

Emergency Visiting Physician Temporary Permits will remain in effect for an additional 30 days after the termination of the disaster declaration to allow permit holders and health care entities to properly plan. Therefore, current authorized Emergency VPTPs, and any emergency reactivations for retired or cancelled licenses, will terminate on July 14, 2023, and permit holders who do not have an active permit or license with the Board must cease practice in Texas. 

The following additional rule waivers are no longer in effect as of 6/15/2023: 

• Telemedicine Waiver: allowed providers to establish a physician-patient relationship via telephone (audio-only) and enabled phone consults to diagnose, treat, order tests, and prescribe. 

• Supervision and Prescriptive Authority Registrations: waived the requirement of physicians having to register with the TMB their supervision and prescriptive authority for PAs and APRNs. For more information on this requirement, visit: https://www.tmb.state.tx.us/page/supervision-and-prescriptive-delegation

• Limits on Number of Delegates: waived the delegate limit of seven PAs or APRNs that a physician could supervise and delegate to regardless of location or setting. 

• PITs: allowed Texas hospitals and facilities associated with Graduate Medical Education (GME) training programs to be able to utilize Physician in Training (PIT) permit holders in areas outside of their GME training program to respond to COVID-19. 

Denise L. Meyer

It’s going to be a rough few weeks beginning NOW!!! As someone that has been through two moves with the board it is never easy and it appears that this one seems a big more complicated that the two in the past. I am hoping that the staff will enjoy their new digs but it will take time to adjust to the new area of Austin, although it is not that far from their present location. There will be new parking issues, new offices, etc. So, if you are dealing with staff please offer staff a great deal of grace. Below is an email attachment that I received this morning, October 18, 2022.

TMB offices will begin the process of relocating to the George H.W. Bush state office building (1801 Congress Ave.) starting Monday, Oct. 24 through Monday, Oct. 31. Offices will be closed to visitors during this time and online services will be unavailable starting Saturday, Oct. 22 until the conclusion of the move. We apologize for the disruption caused by the move.  

The following applicant services will be unavailable starting October 22^nd; 

·All Online applications, 

·MyTMB/SSO – this includes: 

·LAMAS,  

·JP Exam study guide, and  

·Access to the JP exam through our vendor 

·The Licensure Inquiry System of Texas (LIST) – this includes: 

·Lacking items list and details, 

·Messaging, and 

·Document upload system 

TMBScreening@tmb.state.tx.us, Screen-CIC@tmb.state.tx.us, and licensure analyst staff emails will be able to receive emails; however, as our internal systems will also be unavailable, staff will be out during this time and will be unable to respond to email messages until the system is restored online.

We ask that you not email attachments for lacking items or documents that are submittable through the LAMAS or LIST document upload system. Please wait until all internal systems have been restored online in order to submit these documents through these portals properly. 

Staff will also be unable to scan and distribute incoming mail during this time or send out any mail, Fed Ex, etc. Also, couriers may not be able to access the building during this time so please do not schedule delivery services for documents such as FedEx, UPS, or DHL during this time.  

Please also be aware that it will take time for staff to process the backlog of incoming email and mail correspondence received during this time. Correspondence and mail will be processed in the order they were received, and there may a delay in processing. Again, we apologize for the disruption. Thank you for your cooperation.

The Texas Medical Board will be vacating their offices in the Hobby Towers the end of October. The board will be moving into the new George HW Bush offices located at 1801 Congress Avenue. The move will cause a bit of disruption to normal staff work for perhaps a couple of weeks while phones and computer services are moved. The last time we moved was from North Austin to downtown. It was a fun and exhilarating move. We had to boot the Texas Insurance Board out of some of their space – and boy did they have space. The insurance folks had spread far and wide across the Hobby Towers and you would have thought we were the settlers encroaching on their territory! I am excited for the move for the med board staff but there will be some angst as folks figure out new parking, new driving routines, etc. So please be patient as they transition.

As promised in the 2021 Texas Legislative Session the Texas Medical Board is launching the Interstate Licensure Compact on March 1, 2022. The board released the following announcement on February 23rd.

Interstate Medical Licensure Compact Begins March 1st in Texas Physician applicants outside of Texas, and Texas physicians wishing to practice in another member state, can begin submitting applications to the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact Commission (IMLCC) on Tuesday, March 1.  The Interstate Medical Licensure Compact is a voluntary, expedited pathway to licensure for qualifying physicians who wish to practice in Compact member states.  For details on qualifying for Compact licensure, and Frequently Asked Questions, please visit: https://www.tmb.state.tx.us/page/interstate-medical-licensure-compact 

This is the culmination of years of planning and pushing and begging Texas legislators to fall in with so many other states to understand the necessity of physicians to be able to readily move quickly across state lines to practice. Texas became the 33rd state to join the compact. The Federation of State Medical Boards www.fsmb.org serves as the parent organization for the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact which began in 2017. The Compact which mirrors the compact license of nurses affords physicians who qualify an expedited avenue to licensure. This is not a way to skip around state to state or to escape an investigation or perhaps punishment for a reportable action but to allow good doctors the ability to quickly get to states that need assistance, such as Texas.

I for one am very excited to finally see Texas join the Compact – so bring it on Texas – it’s about time! Denise Meyer