On July 7, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published the 2023 Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) proposed rule. Key items affecting labs and lab owners:
- The PFS proposes to change PAMA reporting timelines and requirements in response to recent shuffling in price data reporting schedules;
- CMS wants to change the part of the PAMA regulations requiring phase-in of payment cuts to indicate that the payment for CY 2022 may not be reduced by more than 0 percent, as compared to CY 2020, and that 15 percent will be the maximum payment cut for CYs 2023 through 2025;
- CMS is proposing to “codify and clarify various laboratory specimen collection fee policies” included in the Medicare Claims Processing Publication;
- CMS wants to create new regulations governing the calculation of travel allowances for specimen collection;
- CMS is proposing to reduce the minimum age payment limitation for certain colorectal cancer screening to 45 years and add coverage of follow-on screening after a Medicare covered non-invasive stool-based colorectal cancer screening test returns a positive result; and
- By eliminating the COVID-19 pandemic payment bump of FY 2022, CMS is proposing a 3 percent cut in PFS payments for 2023.
Look for a more detailed report on the 2023 Physicians Fee Schedule in the upcoming August 2022 issue of National Lab Reporter