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This biweekly newsletter provides concise, independent coverage and analysis of fast-breaking lab, pathology, blood banking, imaging and diagnostic radiology news from the Nation's Capital.
You'll find out about:
- Medicare payment and policy directives Billing guidelines and coding changes for diagnostic facilities
- CLIA & MQSA regulatory mandates, changes and interpretations
- Congressional actions & legislative initiatives
- Federal compliance requirements
- OIG anti-fraud initiatives
- Stark self-referral prohibitions
Plus you will get other legal news regarding FDA oversight of in vitro diagnostics, blood banks, and radiological devices OSHA, NRC, and state safety standards.
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 | NIR February 11, 2008 (full PDF issue) |
| Lab bidding demo: Key design requirements
Focus on the FY 2009 Medicare budget
—Provider payment cuts loom large
—45% trigger poses additional cutback threat
—Call for national lab competitive bidding repeated
—Market reforms to expand healthcare coverage
HHS cannot stop Medicare lab payments to hospital in CLIA lab dispute, court rules
FDA approves new test identifying four common respiratory viruses
Don’t miss our upcoming Molecular Diagnostics conference, April 30-May 2
Full Article |
| San Diego Labs Ask Court for Immediate Halt to Medicare Competitive Bidding Demo |
| Following up on a lawsuit filed recently, three San Diego area clinical laboratories and health systems asked a federal court on February 4 for a temporary restraining order to put an immediate stop to Medicare’s lab competitive bidding demonstration project, including solicitation of bids due February 15. At press time, the court is expected to rule quickly, after giving the government a chance to respond.
Full Article |
| President’s Budget Spares Lab Fees, Is Silent on Physician Fee Fix |
| While hospitals and other institutional providers face deep cuts in their Medicare payments under the President’s budget request for fiscal 2009, unveiled February 4, clinical labs have escaped further proposed reductions in the Part B lab fee schedule. But lab competitive bidding is still a priority for savings in the budget.
Full Article |
| President Calls for Steep Medicare Provider Pay Cuts, Lab Fees Spared, But Physician Fee Fix Not Addressed |
| Clinical lab fees payable under Medicare Part B are not included on the hit list for provider payment cutbacks in the President’s budget request for federal fiscal year 2009, released February 4 and sent to Congress. Lab fees, frozen since 2004 at 2003 levels, are scheduled to emerge from the freeze at the end of this year and are in line for an automatic Consumer Price Index update in calendar 2009 unless Congress says otherwise.
Full Article |
| Court Blocks Medicare Pay Cutoffs in CLIA Lab Dispute |
| A federal district court January 10 waived the "usual remedy exhaustion" requirement, preventing the Health & Human Services Secretary from canceling a California hospital’s approval to receive Medicare and Medicaid payment for clinical laboratory services (Victor Valley Community Hospital v. Leavitt).
Full Article |
| FDA Okays New Test for Four Common Respiratory Viruses |
| The Food & Drug Administration has cleared for marketing a test that simultaneously detects four common respiratory viruses, including the flu, in a patient’s respiratory secretions. The ProFlu+ molecular biology device, manufactured by Prodesse Inc. of Milwaukee, WI, provides results in as few as three hours. Other diagnostic tests for respiratory viruses are fast but not as accurate, or are accurate but not as rapid, the FDA said.
Full Article |
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