Stop the Cuts to Lab Fees

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is planning on cutting payment for hundreds of laboratory tests. In response, ASCP is releasing an Action Alert on Monday to help ASCP members and other individuals working in the laboratory field to Stop the Cuts. 

On January 1, CMS will be imposing cuts on approximately 500 tests on the Medicare Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule (CLFS). The cuts stem from problems associated with the Protecting Access to Medicare Act (PAMA), which required CMS to establish new payment rates based on the market-rate for each test. Additionally, CMS will also be requiring laboratories to comply with another burdensome round of data reporting.

ASCP believes CMS’s payment scheme is flawed. CMS’s payment rates over-represent data from large reference labs and imposes a massively burdensome reporting requirement. The result is that CMS’s payment rates are lower than market rates, a problem that has been compounded by private insurers citing these rates as basis to justify cutting their own. These cuts could negatively impact the operations of many U.S. laboratories trying to provide prompt, quality testing services for their patients.

ASCP’s is calling on Congress to suspend CMS’s planned CY 2022 cuts and to postpone the upcoming data reporting requirement. These two requests were addressed in a recent letter ASCP and other laboratory and pathology organizations sent congressional leaders.

ASCP asks that you take a few minutes to urge Congress to Stop the Cuts  to the CLFS. 

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