§ 74.103.Duties of Disclosure Panel; Limitations on Authority

The panel's duties, and the two-list structure is what gives the scheme its effect.

The panel shall identify and make a thorough examination of all medical treatments and surgical procedures, to the extent feasible, to determine which do and do not require disclosure of risks and hazards.

It then prepares separate lists of each, and for those requiring disclosure establishes the degree of disclosure required and the form in which it will be made. Each provision of a disclosure form must be made available in English and Spanish.

Both lists carry legal consequences, which is the point of listing what does not require disclosure. Under the effect-of-disclosure section, a failure to disclose based on inclusion on the no-disclosure list creates a rebuttable presumption of compliance — so the second list is a defence, not merely an absence.

The lists and written explanations are published in the Texas Register, which makes them accessible to physicians and patients alike.

Subsection (d) requires maintenance. At least annually the panel examines new treatments and procedures developed since its last determinations, assigns them to the proper list, and revises existing lists. Medicine changes faster than statutes, and the annual review is what keeps the scheme current.

Subsection (e) is a limit on the panel: it is not authorized to take any action that changes the scope of practice authority of any physician or provider. It decides what must be disclosed, not who may do what.