In the June 2014 issue of MLO, now accessible at www.mlo-online.com, Alan Mertz, president of the American Clinical Laboratory Association, takes up the topic of the latest “doc fix” bill, recently enacted by Congress and signed by President Obama. Mertz argues in the June issue's “Washington Report” (page 48 in the print and digital editions) that, though far from perfect, the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014 (PAMA) was the best available alternative to protect reimbursement for clinical labs. Laboratorians would prefer, he argues, that there be no additional cuts to the Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule (CLFS) in the future, but that was not an available policy option, and PAMA is vastly superior to the more draconian reductions in reimbursement that would have obtained under the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service process that was previously underway. MLO would be pleased to hear readers' opinions about that, or about the whole troubling issue of reimbursement “adjustments.”
