Congress Should Fix Medicare Payment Now

With the 2024 election over, Congress has entered yet another “lame duck” legislative session. It has until January 2nd to finish up all its unfinished legislative business. It should reform how Medicare pays for physician and clinical laboratory services before then.

In 2025, the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) will cut payment rates for physician and pathology services 2.8 percent unless Congress intervenes. This is now the fifth year in a row that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has proposed cutting physician pay. Moreover, laboratory payment rates are also under threat, with approximately 800 tests targeted for cuts of up to 15 percent.  While cuts to laboratory test payment rates have been blocked by Congress since 2021 (including next year), the threat of cuts in future years still looms.

The threat of new cuts is alarming given that since 2001 PFS payments have fallen approximately 26 percent. In addition, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services cut spending for the Medicare Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule (CLFS) more than 15 percent between 2018 and 2020, and this fee schedule also been cut or frozen in 18 of the previous 25 years. Inflation is eating away at both the PFS and CLFS. 

These cuts are not sustainable, and it is crucial that we send Congress the message that it should fix payment rates for both the Medicare PFS and CLFS this year.

ASCP is working closely with our advocacy partners to address these issues--the American Medical Association to address PFS payment issues and the American Clinical Laboratory Association to address CLFS issues. For these efforts to succeed, we need help from ASCP’s membership. 

Last month, ASCP released an Action Alert to empower its members to urge Congress to fix Medicare payment rates. We are asking ALL of our members, credential holders, and their colleagues to use the ASCP eAdvocacy Center to send Congress a message to Fix Medicare Payment Rates Now (Click here).

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