The American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP) has submitted a letter to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) requesting that CMS revise its CY 2017 Physician Fee Schedule Proposed Rule.
Here are some of the key points to know about ASCP’s request:
- The proposed rule outlined CMS’s desire to significantly reduce payment rates for a number of pathology services, such as immunohistochemistry, morphometric analysis, flow cytometry, microslide consultation, prostate biopsies and cytopathology interpretations.
- CMS projects that the policy changes it proposed would decrease pathology billing reimbursement by 2% and independent clinical laboratory billing reimbursement by 5%.
- ASCP raised concerns about plans to cut payment rates for immunohistochemistry and morphometric analysis add-on codes by reducing the physician work component by 20%.
- ASCP disagreed with the CMS proposal to reduce reimbursement for the prostate biopsy G-code G0416 as the proposal did not properly value the amount of work involved.
- ASCP asked CMS to restore the Refinement Panel, which CMS has not used in recent years. This panel serves as a means to appeal certain payment rates adopted by CMS.
- ASCP asked CMS to modernize the Stark Law’s in-office ancillary services exception to prevent the self-referral of anatomic pathology services by clinicians.
Learn more about ASCP.