Clinical Laboratory Executives and Pathologists Gathered in New Orleans This Week to Learn New Financial Strategies to Cope with Shrinking Lab Test Prices
Medical laboratories and anatomic pathology groups are scrambling to respond as healthcare evolves into new models of integrated clinical care and payers seek to reduce reimbursement for clinical lab tests
NEW ORLEANS, LA.—There was more bad news than good news for the 800 clinical laboratory professionals and pathologists who assembled this week in “The Big Easy” to discuss and debate the serious financial and clinical challenges now weighing down the entire profession of laboratory medicine in the United States.
Probably the most unwelcome news delivered to attendees at the 19th Annual Executive War College on Laboratory and Pathology Management, was the contents of the new law titled the “Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014” (PAMA). This was the legislation passed by Congress to patch the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula for one more year. It was signed into law by President Obama on April 1, 2014. (more…)