Since 1995, Reliable Business Intelligence for Clinical Laboratories, Pathology Groups and Laboratory Diagnostics

Volume XX No. 12 - September 9, 2013

Medicare’s Latest Attack on Lab Test Prices

MANY OF YOU KNOW ABOUT THE PROPOSED NEW MEDICARE RULE by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) that it would use to initiate a review of the prices it pays for 1,250 clinical laboratory tests under the Medicare Part B Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule (CLFS). However, I’ll bet that most of you are …

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CMS Ready To Hack Away at Cost of Lab Testing

CEO SUMMARY: In July, the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published three proposed rules which would allow it to act independently of Congress to set prices for clinical laboratory testing and pathology services. Analyses of these proposed rules indicate that they would substantially reduce reimbursement paid to labs and pathologists under existing …

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CMS Proposes Yet More Cuts for 2014, Beyond

CEO SUMMARY: In July, CMS proposed rules to cut payments under the Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System, the Physician Fee Schedule, and the Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule. Under each program, the proposed payment cuts could have a significant and negative effect on the amount of payments that laboratories receive from Medicare. Two of the proposals …

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Attorneys for CAP Say CMS Fee Proposals Illegal

CEO SUMMARY: In its comments about a proposal to change the way CMS pays for clinical laboratory and pathology services, the College of American Pathologists (CAP) said that CMS is using faulty assumptions. CAP further commented that the CMS proposal to cap physician fee schedule payments at the level of hospital outpatient department rates violates …

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CMS’ Proposed Lab Rules May Not Fly with Congress

CEO SUMMARY: Many clinical lab administrators have noticed the new activism at the federal Centers for Medicare Medicaid Services (CMS) when it comes to control of establishing prices for clinical laboratory tests. In this exclusive interview, two long-time advocates for the National Independent Laboratory Association discuss several of the issues associated with the three proposed …

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Hospitals Recognize Need for Uniform Lab Test Data

CEO SUMMARY: Hospitals may soon insist that payers allow their in-house labs to provide outpatient testing regardless of exclusive managed care contracts with national lab companies. The migration to accountable care organizations (ACOs) and medical homes makes it essential that physicians have access to lab data across the entire continuum of care. Standardization of reporting …

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September 9, 2013 “Intelligence: Late Breaking Lab News”

bioMérieux is on the move. Last week it announced that it would pay $450 million to purchase privately-held BioFire Diagnostics of Salt Lake City, Utah. BioFire has a solid tech- nology base in molecular diagnostics. It developed and currently markets its FilmArray product, which it describes as a multiplex PCR system. BioFire also designed the LightCycler …

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