ASCP, AMA, and other provider groups are urging Congress to reverse payment cuts to the Medicare physician fee schedule (PFS), which pays for both physician services and technical services performed by laboratory personnel such as histotechnologists, cytotechnologists and others. A sign-on letter to congressional leaders urges them to override several recent cuts in PFS payment rates before the end of the 2022, including:
• Provide relief from a 4.4 percent budget neutrality cut that is planned for 2023,
• End the statutory annual freeze and provide an inflation-based update for the coming year, and
• Waive the 4-percent PAYGO sequester triggered by passage of the American Rescue Plan Act.
ASCP believes that part of the solution to addressing some of the personnel issues affecting the laboratory industry is to ensure pathology and clinical laboratories are adequately compensated for their work. The Society encourage all members to contact their representatives in Congress using
AMA's eAdvocacy site and ask them to reverse these payment cuts. Unless Congress acts soon, overall physician payments are expected to be cut by more than eight percent in 2023. Such cuts would undermine patient care and the practice of pathology and laboratory medicine.
To read more articles from this issue of ePolicy, click
here. To learn more about ePolicy News and access past newsletters and articles, click
here.
For more information regarding ASCP's advocacy initiatives and policy positions, please contact ASCP's Center for Public Policy at (202) 408-1110.
ASCP ePolicy News is supported by an unrestricted grant from Hologic.
