Monday, February 16, 2026

Can Chat GPT Find Medicaid Genetic Test Prices? (81420 trisomy, 81519 oncotype)

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 It's easy to look up Medicare prices for genomic tests - there is one national Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule CLFS. It's hard to...

HHS Releases Massive Medicaid Database: Fighting Fraud, Other Uses

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CMS has long released provider-level, CPT-coded utilization or payment data.  (See exactly which CPT codes your doctor was paid for in 2023....

Breaking the Biomarker Bottlenecks: Why CDx and Digital Pathology Just Got Much More Strategic

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Breaking the Biomarker Bottlenecks: Why CDx and Digital Pathology Just Got Much More Strategic Below, Chat GPT 5.2 summarizes a pair of arti...
Saturday, February 14, 2026

Get It Here: Another Detailed RFK Jr Interview with Podcast Host

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On February 1, I published a detailed review of a long interview between RFK Jr and podcast host Katie Miller ( here ).  Regular news covere...
Friday, February 13, 2026

CMS Updates PAMA Reporting Page - Timelines are Short

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 PAMA lab price reporting, for CMS median rate-setting, has been frozen since 2019.   Based on section 6226 of the February 3 federal budget...
Thursday, February 12, 2026

Podcast Scan: Owkin's Podcast with Jorge Reis-Filho

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Owkin is a French company on the cutting edge of genomic/cellular/biomarker/AI discovery. They have 63 videos on YouTube , many of them vide...

CMS Gapfill: Spring 2026 Update & What Will Happen

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Each fall, CMS determines which of 100-odd new lab codes are crosswalked and which are "gapfilled," meaning priced by MACs - for...

Amal Thommil Updates Decibio MRD Coverage (February 2026)

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 Amal Thommil at DeciBio updates us on coverage for minimal residual disease testing (MRD). See his chart here . click to enlarge

AI VERSION: My Heart Skipped a Beat, CMS Proposes X1-X2 Modifiers for NCD 90.2 (NGS in Cancer)

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This blog issued as AI version (below) and my original human written version . ### Header:  CMS proposes X1/X2 modifiers to encode cancer s...

HUMAN VERSION: My Heart Skipped a Beat: CMS Proposed X1, X2 Modifiers for NCD 90.2 NGS in Cancer

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This blog issued as my human-written version here, and an AI-written version adjacent . ## CMS has an NCD, 90.2, which was designed in 2017 ...

This May Save Your (Reimbursement Nerd) Life Someday: CMS Defines CR Implementation Date vs Effective Date!

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Header:  CMS issues MAC instructions (e.g. for NCDs) by "Change Release" instructions, which are also public.  Every new requirem...
Tuesday, February 10, 2026

Excellent MedTech Podcast: From R&D to FDA to Commercialization (Dr Doug Kelly, FDA)

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Heard an excellent podcast today on MedtechTalk, featuring Douglas Kelly MD MBA , a physician and venture capitalist who served 2020-2025 as...

Big News for Digital Pathology: AMA Appears Set to Use CATEGORY III for Whole Slide Imaging / AI

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It's no secret that AMA CPT PLA made a half-dozen codes for whole-slide imaging 3 to 4 years ago, and then seemingly imposed a "mor...
Monday, February 9, 2026

Medical History: Specialties Draw Opposite Conclusions from the Same Data

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 I just came back  from the AMA CPT meeting, where dozens of topics are debated "pro and con" with opposing stakeholders. I was re...

AMA CPT: Important Clarifications to Confidentiality Policy

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At the February 5-6, 2026 AMA CPT meeting, the first couple hours are devoted to "new news" rather than code review. There was an ...