Legislative Day, March 15-16th, 2010
Submitted by: Sharon Pendergrass, ASCLS-MN Government Affairs Chair
December, 2009
With all the news about the Health Care Reform bills going on in the Senate and House of Representatives, have you wondered how this is going to impact the laboratory? Right now the House of Representatives bill is proposing a 1.5-1.7% reduction in the Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule over the next 5 years which amounts to a $5 billion reduction for laboratory reimbursement. The Senate version of the Health Care Reform Act would result in a $100 million reduction in laboratory reimbursements. On the positive side the House Health Bill includes scholarships to help students pay for clinical lab training and provide incentives to academic programs to train and maintain laboratory personnel. As we all know, these bills have only passed the first hurdle. There are many more hurdles to come before the final version is signed by the President.
If you are concerned about what your Senators and House of Representatives are proposing for you profession, I would highly recommend attending the Legislative Symposium in Washington, D.C that ASCLS co-sponsors each year along with CLMA, ASCP, and AMT. This year the symposium will be held on March 15-16th, 2010 at the Hyatt Hotel in Crystal City, Arlington, Virginia. The first day is spent learning the current laboratory issues as presented by leading industry and professional leaders. You also learn how to approach and talk with the Legislative Assistants to best explain our professional issues. The next day is spent actually meeting with Legislative Assistants for your State Senator and House of Representatives. You spend 10-15 minutes with each Legislative Assistant to present the laboratory issues that you learned about the day before. We are given handouts that guide our presentations and are left with the Legislative Assistants to detail our issues.
If you think that your voice doesn’t matter, think again. We as a profession were able to stop the Competitive Bidding Demonstration project that was part of the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act. It took a lot of voices to convince our legislators that this project would be detrimental to our laboratory profession. When I attended the Legislative Symposium the next year, I wondered if there could be any new issues that would need our support. Well, there was a whole new set of issues and concerns ranging from the Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule, to the Laboratory Personnel Shortage, to the Specimen Collection Fee. I’m sure this years Symposium will deal with the Health Care Reform bills but the issues from last year have not been resolved yet. So our work continues.
Come join me in Washington D.C if you would like to learn about issues facing our profession; meet other laboratory professionals from throughout the United States; and have access to leading industry and professional leaders as well as your State Senators and House of Representatives. The experience is very intense and very rewarding. Once you attend, you will look forward to attending again the next year.