Texas Medical Board Issues Record Number of Physician Licenses

From the Texas Medical Board Fall 2008 Newsletter, found at www.tmb.state.tx.us

With the help of additional resources appropriated by the Texas Legislature, along with some streamlining of its processes, the Texas Medical Board set a record in Fiscal Year 2008 by licensing more than 3,600 doctors. This surpassed the previous record, set in FY 2007, by almost 300 licenses. TMB also eliminated an application backlog that had grown to more than 500 applications by February. The Board also took steps to improve efficiency in the application processing system by conducting a statewide series of licensing seminars to provide training for credentialing, recruiting and other health care entity staff responsible for assisting physicians with their licensure applications. Fewer mistakes on completed applications will usually result in faster processing time.

 “Texas is a popular place to practice medicine, as evidenced by the dramatic increase over the past few years in the number of doctors who apply to be licensed here,” said Dr. Roberta Kalafut, TMB’s board president. “We have applicants coming to Texas from all over the country and all over the world.

 “Our staff has responded to this greatly increased and varied demand,” Dr. Kalafut said. “We are issuing more licenses than ever, more quickly than ever, and we have eliminated the backlog of applications awaiting processing, all without compromising the quality of physicians licensed in Texas.”

 TMB licensed 3,621 doctors in FY 2008, an increase of almost nine percent over the former record of 3,324 licenses that were issued in FY 2007. The 2007 record eclipsed by almost 500 licenses the previous record, 2,828 licenses, which were issued in FY 2002.

 Processing times for licenses also have been greatly reduced, and exceed legislative requirements. The Board licensed 1,549 doctors in the fourth quarter of 2008 in an average of 42 days. The Texas Legislature in 2007 appropriated six additional employees for the licensing division, while mandating that licenses be issued in an average of 51 days or less.

 To build on this success, during the spring and summer of 2008 TMB conducted 13 licensing seminars in all regions of the state. About 200 individuals attended the three-hour seminars, which offered in-depth instruction on proper preparation of a physician licensure application, with an emphasis on the most common mistakes found on applications. If applications are complete and correct when TMB receives them, processing can be completed much more quickly.

 The training is helpful because of the complexity of license applications. Before TMB can license a physician, it first must determine that the physician’s education and training are substantially equivalent to the medical education and training provided in Texas. This can prove challenging, as TMB last year licensed physicians who were trained in 45 states and 83 other countries.

 Almost 30 percent of the physicians licensed in Texas last year, 1,032, received their medical educations at international schools.