Senate to Consider 20% Copay for Lab Services – Please Contact Your Senators Now
Friday, 28. August 2009
The Senate is considering a 20% Copay for laboratory services that would shift the cost of laboratory testing to seniors and add additional operating costs to laboratories.
The Clinical Laboratory Coalition, of which ASCLS is a member, has written the Senate Finance Committee after learning a 20% Medicare laboratory co-pay was being proposed by the Senate Finance Committee. They told the Committee Chair that: the co-pay financially burdens beneficiaries, laboratories, hospitals and clinics and will not accomplish any change in utilization because laboratory services are ordered by physicians and other health care providers, not initiated by patients. The result of this proposed policy is a not a cost savings to our health care system, but rather, a staggering new $20 billion cost shift to seniors and additional operating costs for laboratories, clinics and hospitals.
ASCLS and other clinical laboratory professional organizations are encouraging their members to contact their senators to let them know that this is a bad idea. For more information and to send an electronic message to you senators you can go the ASCLS Advocacy site.