Update from Sacramento

As we all navigate through these difficult times, we wish all of you and your families to be well. The Legislature has returned to session in Sacramento, the Assembly returned last Monday and the Senate returns today.
 
The focus will be on COVID-19 issues and the economic impact. Clearly pathology practices have been impacted with the elimination of non-essential surgeries and routine medical care with volumes for practices dramatically declining. That is changing with the restrictions being lifted, but patients will still be cautious.
 
Legislative leadership has encouraged their members to only move bills that are essential and necessary in this current time. With a projected state deficit of $53 billion, any bill that would create new programs or spending will have difficulty in surviving the process. Some notes of interest:  
  • This week the proponents of a 2020 Ballot Initiative that would have eliminated the benefits of MICRA announced that they would now pursue the issue for the 2022 ballot. The CSP had joined with a broad coalition of opponents to the proposal.
  •  The CSP has been working on an amendment to AB 890 (Wood) on scope of practice for Nurse Practitioners and SB 1237 (Dodd) on nurse-midwives. Both bills contain broad language to order and perform "diagnostic tests." We have asked for amendments to make sure that any clinical lab tests must be performed in compliance to CLIA and state lab law.
  •  The Legislature will pass a bare bones budget by the June 15th constitutional deadline likely based upon last year's spending. On May 14th, the Governor will release a May Revision on the current year budget that ends on June 30th. The Legislature Budget sub-committees will start meeting in July/August to work on budget trailer bills. The issues and content will include Medi-Cal, but direction is not yet clear.
  • We are aware that CMS has asked all state Medicaid programs to provide specific data on total provider payments by NPI number. No reason was given but it may be that the CARES Act funding might be used to provide some advanced payments to Medi-Cal providers to help them through the recent pandemic.
We will provide an update in the coming weeks on the outcome of what will be a limited Legislative Session.
 
Medicare Pharmacies and Other Suppliers May Temporarily Enroll as Independent Clinical Diagnostic Laboratories to Help Address COVID-19 Testing
 
C MS published information for pharmacies and other suppliers that wish to enroll in Medicare temporarily as independent clinical diagnostic laboratories to help address the need for COVID-19 testing. Interested pharmacies and suppliers will need to apply for a Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) certificate. CMS wants to ensure that laboratories located in the United States applying for a CLIA certificate are able to begin testing for COVID-19 as quickly as possible.
 
Blue Shield Changes to Pathology Payments
 
We have heard from several groups about changes to the Blue Shield fee schedule that were effective 4/15/20. They are mostly clinical lab tests like pap smears and molecular test. Not all groups are seeing the changes and it may depend up which fee schedule applies to the group practice location, i.e. lab or physician fee schedule. We are gathering more information about the changes.
 
CSP 73rd Annual Meeting
 
CSP's 73rd Annual Meeting Dates and Location are available!

Date: December 1- 5, 2020
Location: Hyatt Regency San Francisco

Hotel and Registration links will be posted on the CSP website and sent out in future emails once they become available.