November 13, 2026
CY 2027 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule and Quality Payment Program Webinar
John H. Rippey, MD Grant for Laboratory Quality Assurance
Transcript
Nick Lanyi
How clinical laboratories can better manage risk. Next Wednesday is your chance to help Congress hear Pathology's voice. And the CAP Foundation offers funds for quality assurance projects. These stories and more coming up next. Welcome to CAP News. I'm Nick Lanyi with the College of American Pathologists. It's Friday, November 13th. Here's what's making news in pathology and laboratory medicine. The CAP's Virtual Hill Day is next Wednesday, November 18th. It's crucial for members of Congress to hear Pathology's voice now because they may be voting on legislation affecting Medicare reimbursement for physicians and laboratories before the end of the year. Here's how Virtual Hill Day works. Next Wednesday, CAP members across the country will meet online with congressional representatives and their staffs. Meetings are less than 30 minutes long, and the CAP will handle the scheduling and provide talking points. No advocacy experience is required. Go to the CAP website's advocacy page to register. Do you have any questions about the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services 2027 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule and Quality Payment Program Final Rule? CAP leaders will provide a comprehensive overview at a webinar Tuesday, November 17th at 4 p.m. Eastern Time. They'll cover the impact on pathologists, what might be coming down the road, and what the CAP is doing to represent pathology in Congress and the agencies. You can register at the CAP website education page. The deadline to apply for the CAP Foundation's John H. Rippey MD grant for laboratory quality assurance is Monday, November 16th. The foundation is offering $1,000 to $10,000 for short-term projects that support quality assurance in pathology. The grant honors the memory of Dr. John H. Rippe, a CAP leader who died in 1994. The grant is open to pathologists, pathology residents, or medical students. See the CAP Foundation website for more information. And finally, one of the biggest challenges when running a clinical laboratory is risk management. That's the focus of a CAP webinar on Wednesday, November 18th at Noon Central. One of the speakers will be Dr. Sarah Rutter, Director of Clinical Pathology and Director of Transfusion Medicine Blood Banks at Nebraska Methodist Hospital in Omaha, Nebraska.
Dr. Sarah Rutter
Risk management really is just one more way that we are taking care of our patients. And I think a lot of people confuse it with the way hospitals think of risk management in terms of legal and protection and protecting the hospital when something has happened. But in the laboratory setting, it's really about being proactive to take care of our patients. We're not waiting until something goes wrong. We're trying to get ahead of a problem before it really is a problem, even.
Nick Lanyi
Dr. Rutter, who is chair of the CAP's Complaints and Investigations Committee, said the webinar will cover risk management across all phases of the testing process.
Dr. Sarah Rutter
What we want to avoid is basically ticking off all the boxes of all the possible types of lab tests that could present in a patient with slightly abnormal bleeding factors and or a suspected bleeding history. So when we talk about calibrating an instrument, that's a form of risk management. We're making sure that the instrument is functioning the way we think it should. Proficiency testing. That's risk management too. We're making sure that the entire system, from machine to operator to reagents, is functioning the way it's intended. We think about what happens in blood bank. I'm a blood banker, so I always go right back to blood bank. What we want to avoid is basically ticking off all the boxes of all the possible types of lab tests that could present in a patient with slightly abnormal bleeding factors and or a suspected bleeding history. So much of what we do in terms of the specimen identification, second checks on a new specimen to make sure it's the right person, the right type, no unexpected results, trying to prevent that dreaded wrong blood and tube scenario. That's all risk management. We're doing it every day.
Nick Lanyi
Dr. Rutter and Dr. Richard Friedberg, chair of the CAP's accreditation committee, will also discuss strategies to assess where risk is found in the laboratory and how you can better prepare for them.
Dr. Sarah Rutter
One of the most important things is just to kind of reframe your mindset and be more proactive. I think a lot of us, when we think of risk, think about things that have already happened. And there's certainly a reactive element to risk management and laboratories. But I think where we can really shine is the proactive steps. We're already doing a lot of it, but just thinking ahead, thinking about where a problem might be or where something could happen and what we can do to prevent it from happening. Uh you know, if your lab, like so many labs, is stuck is struggling with staffing, maybe you look at shifts to see when you're seeing the most volume and try to change your staffing to accommodate that. Maybe you're finding communication is an issue, and so you make a communication log. It's thinking about where those problems might be ahead of time before they're really even a problem.
Nick Lanyi
You can register for the webinar at the CAP website education page. That's all for today. See the show notes for more information on today's stories. And if you've got a story you'd like us to cover, write us at stories at CAP.org. We'll be back Monday, November 16th with another edition of CAP News. I'm Nick Lanyi. Have a wonderful weekend.