TAG:
Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014
PAMA Cuts Have Simply Been Kicked Down the Road
PAYMENT RATE CUTS FOR CLINICAL LABORATORY TESTS, called for under the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014 (PAMA), have been avoided temporarily—again. A down-to-the-wire bill in Congress to keep the federal government funded into the new year in…
VALID and SALSA Acts Still Pending in Congress
CEO SUMMARY: Both the pending VALID Act and SALSA Act continue to push ahead as 2022 comes to an end. Meanwhile, a new bill centered on the Physician Fee Schedule may protect pathologist payments. These three different proposals share something in common:…
PAMA Cuts Might Be Reduced to Zero for 2023
CEO SUMMARY: Congress may soon vote on a new bill that permanently reduces the amount of price cuts to Medicare Part B lab test prices, as specified under the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014 (PAMA). The Saving Access to Laboratory Services Act (SALSA) eliminates a 15% paym…
June 27, 2022 Intelligence: Late-Breaking Lab News
Efforts to revise the much-criticized methods Medicare officials use to establish prices the government pays clinical laboratories under the Protecting Access to Medicare Act (PAMA) of 2014 got a boost last week. On June 22, a bipartisan bill to accomplish that was introduced in the U.S. Senate. The …
Labcorp to Buy Outreach, Manage Ascension Labs
CEO SUMMARY: In a blockbuster deal valued at almost half a billion dollars, Labcorp will manage dozens of hospital labs in 10 states on behalf of Ascension Health, one of the biggest health systems in the country. Labcorp will also spend $400 million to acquire certain assets of Asc…
Non-COVID Part B Lab Spend Declined by 15.9% in 2020
MEDICARE PART B CLINICAL LABORATORY FEE SCHEDULE CUTS mandated by PAMA continue to bite deeply. A new government report shows that during fiscal 2020, the Medicare program spent 15.9% less for lab tests, when COVID-19 test payments are excluded. The fed…
Congress Votes: No PAMA Price Cuts for 2022
IT’S WELCOME NEWS THAT CONGRESS VOTED EARLIER THIS MONTH to defer the PAMA price cuts to the Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule (CLFS) that were scheduled to take place in 2022. This is a positive development for the finances of the nation’s clinical labs, particularly the smaller, independent labs t…
PAMA Test Price Cuts Deferred: It’s a ‘Huge Win’ for Labs
TWO BIPARTISAN VOTES IN THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AND SENATE will save clinical laboratories from another year of deep payment cuts imposed under the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014 (PAMA). “This is a huge win for clinical labs,” s…
CURRENT ISSUE
Volume XXX, No. 7 – May 8, 2023
The Dark Report examines how the acquisition of Geisinger Health by Kaiser Permanente not only sets the stage for more blockbuster hospital deals, but offers a platform for new value-based reimbursement models. Also in this issue, payers are seeking ever more documentation before they’ll pay lab test claims.
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