MedPAC Exploring Simpler Ways for Labs to Report PAMA Data

The federal advisory body Medicare Payment Advisory Commission in a briefing on Friday reported that it is exploring alternative ways to report data from the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014 that are less burdensome for laboratories. 

One of those alternatives could be surveying only a representative sample of laboratories for their data, instead of all laboratories performing tests. Congress has required MedPAC to report on the least burdensome data collection process that would result in a representative sample of private payor rates from all laboratory market segments.

The commission investigated ways to reduce the reporting burden on labs and asked a third-party contractor, RTI, to perform an analysis. RTI looked at different survey methodologies that could be used to collect representative and statistically valid samples of independent, hospital outpatient, and physician office laboratories. The commission focused on these three types of labs because they furnished “nearly all” laboratory tests from the Clinical Fee Schedule, and the prices they received varied, O’Donnell said. Primarily, RTI looked at using a representative set of labs to model the reimbursement data.

Source: https://www.360dx.com/reimbursement-news/medpac-exploring-simpler-ways-labs-report-pama-data