The driving force behind Texas Medical Association priorities and advocacy, members have until April 17 to submit online testimony on business items to be considered by the House of Delegates (HOD) at the association’s annual policymaking meeting, TexMed.
TMA members can review business items in the 2025 Handbook for Delegates and have until April 17 at midnight to submit testimony via online portal. Although testimonies are limited to 2,000 characters, members can upload up to three additional supporting documents so long as each file size is no larger than 5 megabytes.
Reference committees will accept in-person testimony at TexMed in San Antonio, to take place May 8-10.
The HOD first allowed members to submit online testimony on business items in 2020, stemming from a resolution passed the year prior. As many TMA members cannot travel to deliver in-person testimony to reference committees, which all take place simultaneously at TexMed, the Lone Star Caucus resolution suggested a pathway to allow more written testimony over a longer period of time. The adopted resolution allowed the association to nimbly change tack during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now a lasting fixture, online testimony grants reference committees the ability to develop advance reports that summarize item recommendations and gives members the opportunity to examine those reports weeks ahead of TexMed, says Temple pediatrician John Asbury, MD.
Dr. Asbury submitted online testimony on almost every business item presented to the house in 2024, an allowance he says gave him the opportunity to communicate his thoughts more effectively.
“Through this process, all … TMA [members] have the chance to be involved in the shaping of policy,” he told Texas Medicine.
Reference committees will review online testimony before publishing their interim reports on the HOD webpage May 5. Committees will hear additional testimony during TexMed’s live, in-person hearings on Friday, May 9.
This is the second year the hearings will begin at noon rather than at 9 am, a change implemented in 2024 to accommodate the joint opening sessions of TexMed and the HOD.
Both in-person and online testimony are open to any member of TMA, and members do not need to be delegates to share either. Final reference committee reports will be published online as they become available May 9, with limited print versions available to delegates at TexMed on May 10.
For assistance submitting testimony, contact hod@texmed.org. Find more information on key dates, reports and resolutions, and the online testimony process on TMA’s HOD webpage, and be sure to register for TexMed.
Alisa Pierce
Reporter, Division of Communications and Marketing
(512) 370-1469