Calendar Year (CY) 2011 Annual Update for Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule and Laboratory Services Subject to Reasonable Charge Payment

CMS issued CR 6991 which provides instructions for the Calendar Year (CY) 2011 clinical laboratory fee schedule, mapping for new codes for clinical laboratory tests, and updates for laboratory costs subject to the reasonable charge payment. The update, effective Jan. 1, 2011, includes 16 new codes and 1,188 modified codes. Under the new fee schedule, local clinical laboratory rates are reduced by 1.75 percent while payments for reasonable charges for all other lab services goes up 1.1 percent.