Tennessee State Society
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Tennessee State Society
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Dear AMT Board
and Federal Government Affairs Committee Members: As we discussed at the
National Convention last week, it is looking increasingly likely that the
President will veto the Medicare legislation (HR 6331) that was sent to him
yesterday following the overwhelming Senate vote. Therefore, it is important
that we do everything we can to urge the 18 Republican Senators who voted for
the bill yesterday to hold fast and vote to override a veto. The vote in the
Senate was 69-30, two more than the 67 needed for an override. Since we don’t
know if Senator Kennedy will be able to vote next time, and McCain didn’t vote
yesterday, this could be very close…we cannot afford to lose any of those 18
Republicans.
G-2 Laboratory Institute Report October 10-13, 2007 By: John W. Sherer, MT(AMT) Chair, AMT Federal Government Affairs Committee John Sherer, MT(AMT) has graciously offered the following synopsis of the first three speakers at the 2007 G-2 Lab Institute. For the full report, go to AMT’s Website- www.AMT1.com. 10/10/07- Dennis Weissman, President of Washington G-2 Reports in his welcome and address opened the session giving an overview of the lab industry over the 25 years since G-2 first started. He stated that in the 80’s, it was all reimbursement concerns, in the 90’s it was on fraud, abuse, and compliance, and in the 21st century, these issues continue with lots of industry restructuring, still growing in technology, and innovation. He stated we are in a world economy and must be competitive in this new arena. He predicts that within the next 3-5 years, we’ll see some variety of universal health care and medical care will double in the next 2 decades. 10/10/07 5:45 PM – Where is the U.S. Lab Market Going? Dr. Colin Goldschmidt, CEO & Managing Director of Sonic Health Care, an Australian lab operation, who has acquired Bioscienta labs in Germany, labs in Switzerland, United Kingdom, and in 2005 bought Clinical Pathology Labs (CPL) labs in Texas and in 2007 SunSet Labs in N.Y. City. They are now the largest international lab at $2.1 billion with over $400 million in the USA market. They have 8 hub labs in the USA including one in Toledo, Ohio. Their formula for success is a Happy Staff, Happy Customers, and Happy Shareholders and core values Service excellence, honesty & integrity, Responsibility & accountability, continuous improvement, and confidentiality. They try to capture the same passion noted in small labs. 10/10/07 6:30PM – Mara Aspinald, President Genzyme-Topic- “Brave New World: Personalized Medicine & the marriage between Diagnostics and Therapeutics”. She stated we must get the message across, “The medical system can not practice personalized medicine without lab tests”. Tests save lives just like drugs save lives.” Old paradigm-Trial and error medicine. Doctor observation of problem, try something and ask, did it work? This is experimental but worked in some cases. New paradigm- Linking tests to action and therapy. Now Doctor observation, orders tests, leads to action with predictable response breaking the cycle of trial and error medicine. She said we need the right drug for the right patient and explained that some people benefit with no toxicity, others get no benefit but have toxicity, and others must have the correct dose to have optimal benefit with low toxicity. Today in USA we have 2.2 million people with adverse events in care annually. Medical errors are now the 6th leading cause of death so we need tests to increase drug efficacy. FDA is part of the problem in that they only require lab tests for 2 approved drugs. There are 3 where they recommend testing and 121 where there are no requirements for testing. She indicated physicians are overwhelmed by the volume of data available on testing that should be done to monitor drugs and patients also need to be educated so she suggest three things: More education, more data, change policies by changing standards for drug test utilization, getting FDA to require testing with the approval process, promote testing as part of Doctors pay for performance and reform reimbursement system tying it to pay for performance standards. Legislative Alert
Support
House and Senate Bills to Repeal Competitive Bidding Demo for Immediate Contact Needed to Members of Congress
At the
urging of the Clinical Laboratory Coalition, legislation has been introduced in
both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate to halt the Centers for
Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) clinical laboratory services competitive
bidding demonstration project. The bills would repeal the section of the
Medicare law that requires CMS to conduct the demo in two metropolitan areas.
Each of
the bills would repeal subsection 1847(e) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C.
§ 1395w‑3(e)), which
requires CMS to conduct the demo. CMS is otherwise expected to announce the
locations and final details of the demo at any time.
Go to the websites of your U.S. Senators and your Congressional Representative. You can find links to those websites by going to www.congress.org, then entering your zip code where indicated. Once you have accessed your legislators’ website, find the feature that allows you to send an e-mail message to their office directly through the web page (look for a menu item that says “Contact Us” or “E-mail the Senator,” or a similar link).
When
contacting your Senators and Representative, urge them
to
support
H.R. 3453
(in the House) and
S. 2099 (in the
Senate). Tell them the bill will repeal a
misguided provision of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and
Modernization Act of 2003 that requires CMS to conduct a competitive bidding
demonstration for Medicare laboratory services. Tell them the demo is a bad
concept and deserves to be repealed because:
With your help, the Medicare competitive bidding demonstration can be defeated. Please write your Congressional Representatives and Senators today! |
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Webmaster: Ray Polasky rpolasky@familyplace.com Last edited on 03/09/2009 |
