NEW YORK – Lab industry groups submitted a letter in support of the Laboratory Access for Beneficiaries (LAB) Act during Wednesday's meeting of the US House of Representatives Energy & Commerce Committee.
The letter, signed by 26 parties – including the American Clinical Laboratory Association, AdvaMedDx, and the National Independent Laboratory Association – called on Congress to advance the LAB Act, which would delay the reporting of lab payment data required by the Protecting Access to Medicare Act by one year and collect recommendations from the National Academy of Medicine on how to improve the law's requirements around lab payment data reporting.
The letter summarized what it said were some of the consequences for labs of PAMA implementation, noting that "according to a survey by the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA), over 79 percent of survey respondents will be unable to provide the full range of testing needed to rapidly diagnose infectious diseases following the PAMA cuts of 2018 and 2019. Over 32 percent of respondents have changed their test menu, and nearly 40 percent now refer more tests to another laboratory, which can cause life-threatening delays in diagnosis and care."
The letter was submitted into the committee record.