Nov 21, 2012 | Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Uncategorized
Nation’s smaller independent medical laboratories and pathology groups provide clinical lab testing services in many under-served communities
Nov. 21, 2012, WASHINGTON, DC—Last Thursday, owners of independent clinical laboratory companies fanned out across Capitol Hill to meet with their respective Senators and Representatives. Probably the number one concern of these lab owners was further cuts to the Medicare Part B Clinical Laboratory Test Fee Schedule.
Congress is preparing to tackle a host of spending issues, not the least which is the Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate sustainable growth rates(SGR). Earlier this year, in February, Congress raided Medicare Part B Clinical Laboratory Test Fees by $2.7 billion over 10 years to provide a source of funding to temporarily fix SGR. (See Dark Daily, “In Fixing Physician Medicare Pay, Congress Enacts Yet Another Cut in Clinical Laboratory Test Fee Schedule,” February 20, 2012.) (more…)
Nov 16, 2012 | Coding, Billing, and Collections, Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Managed Care Contracts & Payer Reimbursement
Organized by the National Association of Independent Laboratories, this effort attempts to educate lawmakers about the negative impact of cuts to Medicare Part B Clinical Laboratory Test fees
November 16, WASHINGTON, DC—This week, an intrepid group of clinical laboratory owners gathered in the nation’s capital specifically to visit their Senators and Representatives. The goal was to educate these elected officials about the tenuous financial condition of independent medical laboratory companies.
In particular, ongoing budget cuts to the Medicare Part B Clinical Laboratory Test Fee Schedule are undermining the ability of medical laboratories to deliver top-flight lab test services. This is particularly true for smaller independent clinical laboratories, particularly these located in communities not well-served by national lab companies. (more…)
Jul 15, 2011 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology, Managed Care Contracts & Payer Reimbursement
Document leak earlier this week pulls curtain back on potential cuts to Medicare/Medicaid spending
Spending cuts of between $334 billion and $353 billion over the next 10 years are on the table in the negotiations over the federal debt ceiling. The bad news for the clinical laboratory industry is that restoration of the Medicare patient co-pay for medical laboratory tests is not only on the list of proposed spending cuts, but represents a significant chunk of money—as much as $16 billion during the next decade!
Typical of beltway politics, it was only because of a leak that the list of proposed Medicare and Medicaid spending cuts became public knowledge. On Tuesday this week, Kaiser Health News was one of the first to report the leak of the documents. It also posted a copy of the briefing documents on its website.
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Feb 14, 2011 | Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory Pathology, Managed Care Contracts & Payer Reimbursement
CMS says it will take steps to rescind the final rule before its scheduled implementation on April 1, 2011
Clinical laboratories and pathology groups will welcome the news that the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will take steps to rescind the final rule that requires the physician’s signature be on all paper requisitions for medical laboratory tests ordered on behalf of Medicare patients. It means that implementation of the rule—now scheduled to become effective on April 1, 2011—will not happen if CMS officials act in a timely manner.
Dark Daily has learned that last Friday a conference call took place involving Jonathan Blum, Director of the Center for Medicare Management, and representatives from the American Association of Bioanalysts (AAB) and the American Clinical Laboratory Association (ACLA). During the conference call, Blum disclosed that a decision had been reached within CMS to rescind the final rule that would require physicians’ signatures on paper requisitions for medical laboratory tests. Apparently, CMS intends to take the steps necessary to rescind this final rule before its effective date of April 1, 2011.
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Aug 18, 2010 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology, Uncategorized
Following an agreement by federal attorneys to destroy the lab bidder’s documents, a federal judge dismisses the case
Last month in a San Diego courtroom, federal attorneys agreed to destroy the clinical pathology laboratory bid documents that had been submitted as part of the poorly-conceived Medicare Part B Laboratory Competitive Bidding Demonstration Project that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) attempted to implement in 2008.
An agreement to destroy the bid documents was negotiated agreement between attorneys for the plaintiff clinical laboratories and federal attorneys for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
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