Thursday, March 29, 2018

CMS Public Lab Meeting Monday June 25, 2018; Advisory Panel Webinar-Only, July 16-17

UPDATED: FINAL AGENDA HAS 100 CODES; SEE UPDATE MAY 25 HERE.
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Each summer, CMS convenes an annual public comment meeting for its pricing of new laboratory codes (e.g. codes that will be active in January, 2019). 

Public Comment Meeting Monday June 25

This year CMS holds its annual public meeting on Monday, June 25, 2018, at the CMS headquarters in Baltimore. 

Registration for in person attendance begins April 4 at CMS via its CLFS webpages.

Stakeholders must submit their presentations by June 11, 2018.   Written comments will be accepted until July 9, 2018. 

CMS publishes the code list for the public meeting at least 30 days in advance.  This means the code release date May 25 will be at least 2 weeks before the presentations-due date June 11.


Advisory Panel Meets Later, And Only By Webinar

CMS also will convene its Clinical Diagnostic Test Advisory Panel, but only by webinar.   The panel teleconference/webinar will be accessible to the public on Monday/Tuesday, July 16/17, 2018.

Get the Documentation:

The Federal Register notice for the June 25 meeting is here.

The Federal Register notice for the July 16-17 advisory panel webinar is here.

Read Carefully:  CMS Proposes One-Slide Per CPT Code Per Stakeholder !

In past years, CMS issued instructions in text on what they needed for pricing: the purpose of the test, clinical population, use, cost and charge information (especially for, but not only for, gapfill).   In 2017 they handed out a 5-slide model deck with "test purpose and method," "cost/charge" data, "recommendation."  This year, they issued a one page PDF instruction for how to build your one slide per test, which should look about like this: