Act Now to Protect Surgical Pathology Payments

Nick Lanyi
0:02

What you can do to protect Medicare reimbursements for surgical pathology services. How to kick off CAP 26 while supporting the CAP Foundation. And an innovative microscope brings pathology to underserved areas. These stories and more coming up next. This is Path News Network daily edition from the College of American Pathologists. I'm Nick Lanyi. It's Tuesday, September 8th. It's all hands on deck to protect Medicare payment rates for surgical pathology services. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is considering changes to surgical pathology codes as part of its proposed 2027 Medicare physician fee schedule. The CAP believes the proposal is based on a flawed analysis and could threaten patient access to timely and accurate diagnoses. The CAP is urging pathologists to submit comments asking CMS to return to its usual process of relying on accurate clinical and comparative data to determine the fair valuation of surgical pathology services. The deadline for comments is midnight next Monday, September 14th. To submit a comment, see the CAP website or the show notes. It's long been known that regular cardiovascular exercise lowers the risk of heart attack and stroke. Researchers in Jinan, China may have discovered one reason why. In research on mice reported in the American Journal of Pathology last week, they found that exercise boosts production of two microRNA molecules that signal the body to reduce fat buildup and inflammation in immune cells. This in turn leads to less buildup of plaque in arteries, known as atherosclerosis. While the findings haven't yet been replicated in humans, identification of these two molecules could eventually lead to medicines that reduce arterial plaque by mimicking the effect of exercise. Tickets are still available for the CAP Foundation's kickoff event at CAP 26 next month. Everyone attending "License to Give: An Interactive Experience" will become an agent of the CAP Foundation for the evening. Enjoy interactive challenges, hidden clues, entertainment, food and drink, and a raffle, all while supporting See Test & Treat, the Foundation's initiative to expand cancer screening and treatment in underserved communities. Tickets for the October 2nd event are on sale at the CAP Foundation website. And finally, a success story involving another of the CAP Foundation's priorities: expanding pathology into underserved areas overseas. In 2023, the Foundation awarded a global pathology development grant to a group of doctors at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston to support an innovative microscope that does just that, and its impact is growing. The Open Flexure microscope is a miniature slide scanner that can be produced on a 3D printer, easily assembled with local materials and powered by a portable battery, even in remote areas. The foundation grant funded a successful pilot program at the University Teaching Hospital of Butare in Rwanda, where samples and slides used to be sent to a lab more than 100 miles away. Here's Dr. Daniel Rosen, a professor of pathology at Baylor, in an excerpt from a CAP Foundation video.

Dr. Daniel Rosen
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I think the OpenFlexure Microscope is a breakthrough technology that can help the pathologist obtain a high-quality picture, scan almost a whole slide, and those images can be used for telepathology purposes, not only for diagnostic purposes, but also for continuous medical education, for faculty, for residents, for medical schools, and opens a world of possibilities for medical training.

Nick Lanyi
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The 3D printed microscope is now used in dozens of countries around the world for both medical and other scientific applications. And the team recently presented at an international conference on diagnostics in low and middle-income countries held at the University of Oxford in England and co-sponsored by the CAP Foundation. That’s all for today. See the show notes for more information on today’s stories. And if you enjoyed this episode, spread the word on social media.

We’ll be back Wednesday at 5 a.m. Eastern for another episode of the Daily Edition. I’m Nick Lanyi. Have a wonderful day.