Low Hanging Fruit #2: More Easy Things You Can Do to Advocate for the Laboratory

Another financial issue affecting pathology and laboratory medicine that you can also help fix concerns the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS). This fee schedule not only reimburses pathologists and physicians for their work, but it also pays for the related technical services performed by laboratory professionals and other non-physicians.

The dilemma is that the Medicare PFS is one of the only Medicare fee schedules that does not receive an annual inflationary update. Recent increases in inflation have been impacting PFS payment rates, such that the fee schedule is slipping further behind in its ability to provide appropriate payment rates. As a result, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, an advisory agency to Congress, recently recommended (for the first time) that Congress should include an annual update to the Medicare PFS to account for inflation.

Legislation, known as the “Strengthening Medicare for Patients and Providers Act” has been introduced in Congress to link the PFS to the Medicare Economic Index, a measure of inflation for physician practices’ operating costs. This bipartisan measure would provide financial stability for those services reimbursed under this fee schedule.

To help counteract the inflationary impacts on the PFS, ASCP is urging all its members to write to their representatives in Congress, urging them to approve this legislation. ASCP is working in concert with the American Medical Association to support this bill. As a result, we recommend that, whether you are a physician or not, you use the AMA’s eAdvocacy Action platform, click here. 

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For more information regarding ASCP's advocacy initiatives and policy positions, please contact ASCP's Center for Public Policy at (202) 408-1110.

 
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