News, Analysis, Trends, Management Innovations for
Clinical Laboratories and Pathology Groups

Hosted by Robert Michel

News, Analysis, Trends, Management Innovations for
Clinical Laboratories and Pathology Groups

Hosted by Robert Michel
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FDA Pushes Forward with Plans to Regulate Laboratory-Developed Tests, in a Move that Will Impact Many Clinical Laboratory Companies and Pathology Groups

It was national news when the FDA sent notice to Congress on July 31 that it planned to issue draft guidance on regulation of LDTs

After sitting in a state of suspended animation for several years, the Food & Drug Administration’s (FDA) plans to regulate laboratory-developed tests are now front and center. On July 31, the FDA served the required 60-day legal notice to Congress that it was ready to move forward to issue rules for regulation of LDTs.

If the federal agency wanted to get the full attention of the clinical laboratory industry, it certainly succeeded. In the four weeks since the FDA alerted Congress of its plans for LDT regulation, there has been a flood of national news stories about this development. (more…)

Forbes Tells the World How Medicare Bollixed Molecular Diagnostic Test Payments, Leaving Nation’s Clinical Laboratories Unpaid for Months

Columnist Steve Gottlieb, M.D., wrote that “This sort of bungling may be without precedent, even for the Medicare agency”

Since the beginning of the year, most Medicare contractors and private health insurers have not paid clinical laboratories and anatomic pathology practices for molecular diagnostic test claims coded to the 114 new molecular test CPT codes.

This unprecedented situation of labs going unpaid for more than three months has created financial turmoil and uncertainty across the medical laboratory profession. In fact, the question must be asked: Did Forbes columnist Scott Gottlieb, M.D., wake up the nation’s Medicare contractors with his column published on March 27? (more…)

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