April 15, 2020 Medicare will pay the higher payment of $100 for COVID-19 clinical diagnostic lab tests making use of high-throughput technologies developed by the private sector that allow for increased testing capacity, faster results, and more effective means of combating the spread of the virus. High-throughput lab tests can process more than two hundred […]
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Accelerated and Advance Medicare payments now available
March 30, 2020 Accelerated and advance Medicare payments provide emergency funding and address cash flow issues based on historical payments when there is disruption in claims submission and/or claims processing. These expedited payments are typically offered in natural disasters to accelerate cash flow to the impacted health care providers and suppliers. In this situation, CMS […]
CLIA Guidance During COVID-19 Emergency
March 30, 2020 CMS has issued important guidance ensuring that America’s clinical laboratories are prepared to respond to the threat of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19.) CMS is committed to taking critical steps to ensure America’s clinical laboratories are prepared to respond to the COVID-19 threat and other respiratory illnesses by implementing flexibility around requirements […]
PAMA Reporting delayed 1 year
January 03, 2020 CMS has officially announced the delay of the next round of PAMA data reporting. Clinical Lab Test data that was scheduled to be reported between January 1, 2020 and March 31, 2020, must now be reported between January 1, 2021, and March 31, 2021. Labs must report data from the original data […]
LAB Act Update
December 19, 2019 Congress has passed the Laboratory Access for Beneficiaries (LAB) Act as part of an end-of-year spending package. The bill, which will delay by one year the reporting of lab payment data required by the Protecting Access to Medicare Act (PAMA), will now be passed on to the President, who is expected to […]
CMS Re-implements AMCC Lab Panels Claim Logic
May 05, 2019 CMS has released official notification of the return to enforcement of Panel billing for certain combinations of laboratory tests. After coming under fire by the GAO for allowing individual billing for the commonly bundled so called ‘organ panels’, CMS has announced a retro-active start date of January 2019 for this update. Read […]
Medicare Mileage Allowance Updated for 2019
January 2019 CMS has announced an updated Travel Allowance for 2019. The update impacts travel allowance payment amounts when billed on a per mileage basis using HCPCS code P9603 and when billed on a flat rate basis using HCPCS code P9604. Read the entire MLN Matters Newsletter here.