Three San Diego clinical laboratories today filed a lawsuit in an attempt to stop the federal government from moving forward with its competitive bidding demonstration project for clinical laboratory services.

Filed by Internist Laboratory of Oceanside, Sharp Healthcare of San Diego, and Scripps Healthcare of San Diego against U.S. Departmentof Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt, the lawsuit also seeks to require public notice and comment on the project, as mandated by federal law.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) chose the San Diego, Carlsbad, and San Marcos (California) communities as the test site for "competitive bidding" of clinical laboratory services. CMS will accept bids on laboratory services and select only a very limited number of labs to perform tests that will be reimbursed under Medicare Part B. Those labs not selected cannot be reimbursed for performing Medicare lab services.

"This lawsuit raises serious legal concerns and shows that something needs to be done to stop this reckless government experiment from moving forward," said Dr. Mark Birenbaum, administrator for the National Independent Laboratory Association and a member of the Clinical Laboratory Coalition (CLC).

"The lawsuit hopefully pulls the plug on this unworkable and unfixable government project," said Alan Mertz, president of the American Clinical Laboratory Association and a member of the CLC. "Laboratory services are not commodities. Ironically, the competitive bidding demonstration project will leave San Diego with less competition, not more."