If the reimbursement cuts from the Medicare and Medicaid programs have done anything positive for the laboratory sector, it is to unite them against further reductions. That was the consensus of officials from the American Clinical Laboratory Association (ACLA), the College of American Pathologists (CAP), and the Mayo Clinic. They discussed the issue during G2 Intelligence’s annual Lab Institute in Arlington, Va., earlier this month. The feeling among the speakers was that the Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule is antiquated, with many tests being paid at rates lower than when the schedule was originally introduced in 1984. “We’re getting about 17 percent less today than we were 19 or 20 years ago,” said Alan Mertz, president of ACLA. He believes the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is more focused on cutting spending than providing care, a view shared by Jennifer Nord Mallard, Mayo’s director of federal government relations. “It’s completely dysfunctional,” she said. John Scott, a vice president in the advocacy division of CAP, also believes the polarized Congress has allowed CMS to operate without the optimum amount of oversight. “It’s moving very aggressively.” As a result, CAP, ACLA, and other lab advocates have to respond in kind, flooding […]
If the reimbursement cuts from the Medicare and Medicaid programs have done anything positive for the laboratory sector, it is to unite them against further reductions.
That was the consensus of officials from the American Clinical Laboratory Association (ACLA), the College of American Pathologists (CAP), and the Mayo Clinic. They discussed the issue during G2 Intelligence’s annual Lab Institute in Arlington, Va., earlier this month.
The feeling among the speakers was that the Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule is antiquated, with many tests being paid at rates lower than when the schedule was originally introduced in 1984.
“We’re getting about 17 percent less today than we were 19 or 20 years ago,” said Alan Mertz, president of ACLA. He believes the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is more focused on cutting spending than providing care, a view shared by Jennifer Nord Mallard, Mayo’s director of federal government relations. “It’s completely dysfunctional,” she said.
John Scott, a vice president in the advocacy division of CAP, also believes the polarized Congress has allowed CMS to operate without the optimum amount of oversight. “It’s moving very aggressively.”
As a result, CAP, ACLA, and other lab advocates have to respond in kind, flooding the agency with comments regarding proposed rate changes, according to Scott. He added that such continued persistent advocacy will be the key to staving off further cuts in the future.
Takeaway: Continued cuts in reimbursement have united the laboratory sector in the hopes that future reductions can be resisted.
