PRESS RELEASE
The Dark Report
21806 Briarcliff Dr.
Spicewood, Texas 78669
512-264-7103 o
512-264-0969 f
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: Rob Martin
rbmatin@darkreport.com
AUSTIN, Texas – It’s back! Congress is once again considering reinstituting patient co-insurance for Medicare lab testing. But that’s only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Congress is debating other equally damaging proposals to substantially reduce reimbursement for laboratory testing. The “big-three” threats to lab-test reimbursement under discussion are:
- A reinstatement of the 20% Medicare patient lab-test co-pay/co-insurance requirement.
- A recommendation by MedPAC that Congress slash $11 billion out of lab-testing funding over the next 10 years. Where would the money go? To boost primary-care physician payment levels.
- Lab-specific proposals by the 12-member, bipartisan congressional super committee created by last summer’s debt-limit legislation to produce up to $24 billion in cuts to the lab industry over the next decade.
To help guide laboratories through these uncertain times, THE DARK REPORT (http://www.darkreport.com) and DarkDaily.com (http://darkdaily.com) is hosting two experts who will give an insider’s understanding of what’s unfolding inside the Beltway for 2012. They will address the “big-three” topics and many more issues threatening the clinical lab industry.
Alan Mertz, President of the American Clinical Laboratory Association (ACLA) has been on the front lines educating Congress and policy-makers about the value of laboratory testing. He will share his perspective on these issues during a special audio conference, “Washington Puts Lab-Test Cost-Cutting on the Table for 2012: Devastating Fee Cuts Plus Other Congressional Proposals and How Your Lab Can Prevent them.” http://darkdaily.com/audio-conferences/washington-puts-lab-test-cost-cutting-on-the-table-for-2012-devastating-fee-cuts-plus-other-congressional-proposals-and-how-your-lab-can-prevent-them-102011
The Audio conference is scheduled for Wednesday, October 26, 2011.
Joining Mertz will be Peter Kazon, Senior Counsel in the Washington D.C. office of Alston & Bird. Kazon has been front and center in many of the most important legislative battles involving the lab-testing industry in recent years.
The Dark Report Audio Conference At A Glance
DATE: Wednesday, October 26, 2011
TIME: 1 p.m. EDT; 12 p.m. CDT; 11 a.m. MDT; 10 a.m. PDT
PLACE: Your telephone or speakerphone
COST: $195 per dial-in site (unlimited attendance per site) through 10/19/11; $245 thereafter
TO REGISTER NOW: Click here or call 1-800-560-6363 toll-free
For additional information, Contact: Ron Martin, 512-264-7103
About The Dark Report
Established in 1995, The Dark Report is the leading source of exclusive business intelligence for laboratory CEOs, COOs, CFOs, Pathologists and Senior industry executives. It is widely-read by leaders in laboratory medicine and diagnostics. The Dark Report produces the famous Executive War College on Laboratory and Pathology Management every spring, which showcases innovations by the nation’s and globe’s leading laboratory organizations. Dark Daily is an Internet-based e-briefing intelligence service, read worldwide by thought leaders in laboratory and pathology management. Other well-known conferences conducted by The Dark Report are Lab Quality Confab (on the use of Lean and Six Sigma methods in labs and hospitals), Molecular Summit (on the integration of in vivo and in vitro diagnostics). The Dark Report co-produces Frontiers in Laboratory Medicine annually in the United Kingdom; Executive Edge bi-annually in Canada; and The Business of Pathology bi-annually in Australia.
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