AHEC started the New Year exploring the rumors from Texas Rad Techs concerning their experiences with the Texas Medical Board (TMB). AHEC’s CEO asked the AHEC marketing group to investigate and was particularly concerned as she holds License #1 and continues to act in concert with TMB.  We surveyed our Texas constituents and have the following to report.

Our survey respondents were almost evenly distributed in renewal times between 2019 and 2020.  There were ten percent more reporting in 2019 than in 2020. Approximately 30% of the respondents were renewing next month in February. This group has more experience than the rest of us as they could have had multiple renewals already.   The survey asked all groups if they were satisfied with the information received from the TMB about their renewal period and 58.5% reported they were not satisfied.

The next question asked how information was received for certificate renewal and 32% reported no personal information was received about the renewal procedure. A letter from TMB was reported by 26% of the respondents and 27% said they looked it up for themselves at the TMB website. Ten percent of the respondents got their renewal information from AHEC.

Respondents were asked if they understood the new renewal periods and how they are structured with 54% saying no. Only 54% were confident that they were renewing correctly. The major problems as identified by the participants included poor communication, length of time for renewals, poor website information, and inconsistency between the ARRT requirements for renewal and the TMB requirements for renewal. Multiple participants listed the inability to reach anyone by phone.  Several participants mentioned the multiple requirements for fingerprinting across Texas state agencies where information had to be on file and you had to pay to place your fingerprints with multiple agencies.  On the bright side, many respondents were reporting that they had no problems with renewal.

We hope that as the TMB gets the different programs established, there will be less and less issues with renewal. The TMB has brought a new dimension to the program in terms of investigation and enforcement.