Wednesday, July 10, 2019

Very Brief Blog: CMS Posts Agenda for July 22-23, 2019, Lab Advisory Panel

Each summer, CMS hosts a panel of experts to discuss how it should price new laboratory codes, and the panel may be asked to discuss additional topics as well.

This year, the Clinical Diagnostic Laboratory Test (CDLT) panel will meet at CMS on July 22-23.
  • Home page for the panel is here.
  • Specific agenda for July 22-23 is here.
    • The panel will discussed about 90 codes, arranged thematically (e.g. microbiology, NGS, etc).
    • In addition to new codes, CMS asks the panel to discuss automated chemistry panel pricing.
Registration closed July 1 but the panel will be webcast (see agenda for links).

If you want a preview of what these panels are like, how the debate sounds, see my online transcripts from July 2018 summer advisory panel, here.

Foreign Nationals

CMS doesn't always make its special rules for foreign nationals clear.  It added a page of instructions to this agenda, which I've clipped on a separate webpage here.  Foreign nationals have to go through a special process starting about two weeks before a CMS site visit.