Advocacy News

• Let's save clinical lab tests by passing the RESULTS Act
• How will 15% cuts to your clinical lab affect you?
• Support the virtual fly-in with Action Alerts
• CAP urges caution on AI in quality measures
• Pathologist now leads Maryland's medical society
• Subscribe to get your daily pathology news briefing on Apple, Spotify

Medicare is planning to slash payment for about 820 clinical lab tests by up to 15% on January 1. 

Time to act: The only way to stop these cuts from hitting laboratories is for Congress to pass legislation before the end of the year.

• The CAP, its members, and the laboratory community are strongly lobbying lawmakers to pass the Reforming and Enhancing Sustainable Updates to Laboratory Testing Services (RESULTS) Act.
• This bill stops the 15% cuts and creates a new method for calculating clinical lab fees.
• The RESULTS Act was introduced on September 10, and the CAP is asking senators and representatives to cosponsor the bill. 

Bill status: In the House, the bipartisan RESULTS Act is led by Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC) and has 29 cosponsors. In the Senate, the bill is led by Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and has one cosponsor, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA).

Take action: Take a moment to join your colleagues in using our Action Center to ask your elected officials to support the RESULTS Act.

We're gathering stories on how Medicare cuts to lab reimbursement would hurt CAP members and the laboratories they direct. 

The impact: Real stories about sustaining patient access to testing in your community help us advocate for meaningful reform and protect your lab.

• Your story = real change: Help us fight back. We're collecting stories through November 7.

Email us at media@cap.org with the subject line “My story” today.

On November 5, invited CAP members in key districts will participate in a virtual fly-in to meet with Congress and advocate for critical issues affecting pathologists and patients. All CAP members can make their voices heard using PathNET and our action alerts below.

What’s at stake: Legislative action on these policies impacts pathology, laboratory medicine, and patient care.

Apply pressure: Between now and the fly-in, we need every CAP member to contact Congress and speak up on these issues by sending Action Alerts that ask their representatives to:

• Support the RESULTS Act to stabilize laboratory services.
• Address the physician workforce shortage by supporting legislation that boosts the number of doctors practicing in the United States.
• Oppose the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act. We must stop this legislation that would allow the patenting of human genes and naturally occurring associations between genes and disease.
• Reform prior authorization. We need them to support legislation that reduces burdensome prior authorization requirements, which interfere with both your practice and patient access to pathology services.

Unsure of how Action Alerts work? Use our step-by-step tutorial to send your alert.

Your voice matters. You can persuade your members of Congress to take appropriate action on these issues!

The CAP has responded to a request for public comments on a proposal for AI in quality measures. 

What we're saying: AI-derived measures could place additional burdens on health care entities without clear evidence of enhanced accuracy or reduced workload. The CAP advises that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) refrain from mandating these measures until they are tested and proven beneficial.

• Key concerns: We highlighted the need to minimize the administrative burden on entities already managing quality reporting. Responsibility for testing AI measures should lie with program owners, not individual entities.
• Interoperability issues: Our recommendation is that measure developers prioritize making data widely accessible for AI models.
• Feedback loop burden: A proposed centralized reporting system could create significant burdens across the measurement ecosystem, from program owners to entities. The CAP warns that practical implementation of such a system may not be feasible or beneficial at this time.

Over the weekend, Eric S. Wargotz, MD, FCAP, was sworn in as the 178th president of MedChi, the Maryland State Medical Society, during its annual meeting in Baltimore.

Dr. Wargotz serves as senior staff pathologist at Luminis Health Doctors Community Medical Center in Lanham, Maryland. This year, he earned the title of Clinical Professor Emeritus of Pathology at George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences.

• He’s also a very active CAP member and serves on the board of PathPAC.

Before his inauguration, Dr. Wargotz said:

"During my tenure as president of MedChi, we expect to promote advancing preventive medicine and strengthening public health, with a focus on guiding Marylanders onto the path toward healthier lives."

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