News for North Texas
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Texas Docs Fight For Medicare Payment Reform

Shutterstock

If you’re a Medicare patient, finding a doctor in Texas can be a challenge.  And there’s a chance Congress is  about to make the task even harder.

In Texas, only 58 percent of doctors take new Medicare patients. That’s partly because reimbursement rates are so low.

Texas Medical Association President Dr. Steven Brotherton told WOAI some doctors receive only one third of what it costs them to treat these patients.

Brotherton, along with the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Family Physicians, are in Washington D.C. lobbying for what they call a “bicameral, bipartisan” agreement to stop dramatic cuts in doctor payments from Medicare.

Read the full story from WOAI.

Lauren Silverman was the Health, Science & Technology reporter/blogger at KERA News. She was also the primary backup host for KERA’s Think and the statewide newsmagazine  Texas Standard. In 2016, Lauren was recognized as Texas Health Journalist of the Year by the Texas Medical Association. She was part of the Peabody Award-winning team that covered Ebola for NPR in 2014. She also hosted "Surviving Ebola," a special that won Best Long Documentary honors from the Public Radio News Directors Inc. (PRNDI). And she's won a number of regional awards, including an honorable mention for Edward R. Murrow award (for her project “The Broken Hip”), as well as the Texas Veterans Commission’s Excellence in Media Awards in the radio category.