October 20, 2026
CAP Applauds Congressional Leaders for Protecting Access to Surgical Pathology Services
CY 2027 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule and Quality Payment Program Webinar
New Earwax Testing Method Improves Meniere’s Disease DiagnosisÂ
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Transcript
Nick Lanyi
Members of Congress from both parties urge CMS to leave surgical pathology codes alone, using earwax to test for Ménière’s disease, and how one medical school boosted interest in pathology. These stories and more coming up next. Welcome to CAP News. I'm Nick Lanyi with the College of American Pathologists. It's Tuesday, October 20th. Here's what's making news in pathology and laboratory medicine. A bipartisan group of 19 House members last week urged the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to drop its proposed changes to surgical pathology billing codes, which could reduce reimbursements for essential pathology services, making it harder for patients to access crucial tests. The proposed changes were based on a single analysis that the CAP says is flawed. The lawmakers, including several MDs serving in the House, echoed the CAP's position that CMS should instead follow its established rulemaking process, including input from pathologists and patients and a full analysis of medical literature and Medicare claims data. The surgical pathology codes are the most urgent of several advocacy issues facing pathology now. Here's Dr. Ronald W. McLawhon, Chair of the CAP's Economic Affairs Committee, at CAP 26 earlier this month.
Dr. Ronald McLawhon
The most important thing to know about the surgical pathology codes and what’s at risk with the Medicare proposed rule is that this is going to affect our entire profession.
Nick Lanyi
Nick Lanyi
You can hear more from Dr. McLawhon at the CAP webinar Tuesday, November 17th at 4 p.m. Eastern Time. It will focus on the surgical pathology codes and other elements of the 2027 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule and Quality Payment Program Final Rule. Dr. McLawhon will be joined by Dr. Diana Cardona, Chair of the CAP's Council on Government and Professional Affairs, and Dr. Gregary Bocsi, Chair of the CAP's Committee on Value-Based Programs and Healthcare Policy. Register for the webinar at the CAP website's education page. It may soon be possible to detect Ménière’s disease by testing fatty acid levels in earwax. The inner ear disorder can cause vertigo, ringing in the ears, and hearing loss, and no test currently exists to diagnose it. Researchers at the State University of New York in Albany recently announced that they have developed a mass spectrometry-based test based on a 2023 study that analyzed earwax samples to measure three fatty acids. The study found that their concentrations were lower in patients with Ménière’s disease. The new test will now undergo clinical trials to see if it's effective in a larger population and as a diagnostic tool. And finally, one way to address the shortage of pathologists is to encourage more medical students to pursue the specialty. A pilot program at Michigan State University's College of Osteopathic Medicine aimed to do that, with apparent success. The medical school lacks a pathology department, so it launched an elective class to expose students to microscopic and macroscopic pathology. Partly led by students with some faculty oversight, the elective provided about 30 hours of exposure to slide and tissue analysis. Of the 23 students who participated, more than half had no previous pathology experience. After the class, 93% of students surveyed said they planned a pathology rotation. You can read about the program in the most recent edition of the journal Academic Pathology. That's all for today. See the show notes for more information on today's stories. And if you have a story you'd like us to cover, write to us at stories at org. We'll be back Wednesday at 5 AM Eastern with another edition of CAP News. I'm Nick Lanyi. Have a wonderful day.