Payment for Laboratory Services

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Laboratories, along with many other healthcare providers, have been ‘squeezed’ for many years now by the payment policies of the outpatient Medicare program (Part B), and by those of managed care organizations. As has been stated frequently, this has converted the laboratory from the status it historically enjoyed of a ‘profit center’ to a ‘cost center’. An illustration of this dilemma is the fact that the Medicare Fee Schedule payments for outpatient laboratory tests have been frozen at the same level, without even a consumer price index (CPI) increase, for nine of the past 13 years. We all know that our employers' costs have not remained stable during that time—we certainly hope that our salaries have not been frozen—so this is an issue of concern to all laboratorians, whether they are in management or not.

ASCLS has taken the lead for many years by including equitable payment for laboratory services in the issues presented at its Legislative Symposium. Nearly every year, one of the ‘leave-behind’ papers which we discuss with our Senators and members of Congress addresses Medicare payment for laboratory services. In addition, ASCLS is an active participant in the Clinical Laboratory Coalition, which has the slogan “Committed to Ensuring Access to Quality Laboratory Services”. Other groups which are members of the Coalition include: AdvaMed; American Association of Bioanalysts (AAB); American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC); American Clinical Laboratory Association (ACLA); American Medical Technologists (AMT); American Society of Clinical Pathologists (ASCP); American Society for Microbiology (ASM); and CLMA –…