Advocacy Update

• CAP Review and Forecast: Advocacy 2024/2025
• Congress Fails to Enact Medicare Pay Fix
• FDA Files Closing Brief Defending LDT Regulations
• CAP Holds Media Briefing on Managing Avian Influenza
• CAP Re-Approved as a Qualified Clinical Data Registry

Listen to our special Advocacy podcast highlighting 2024 legislative achievements and what’s ahead in 2025. Throughout 2024, the College of American Pathologists (CAP) advocated on behalf of pathologists to address critical issues, including the oversight of laboratory-developed tests (LDTs), protecting the value of pathology services, opposing private payer interference, and state-level regulation of health insurance. The CAP is now ready to engage on the these and other important pathology issues during the first 100 days of the Trump Administration and new Congress in 2025.

In this episode, Council on Government and Professional Affairs Chair Joe Saad, MD, CPE, FCAP highlights a year of advocacy legislative wins and 2025 legislative priorities.

Resources

• CAP President testifies during congressional hearing on LDT oversight
• Capitol Hill briefing on LDTs
• Letter to Trump Transition Team about rescinding the LDT final rule
• Letter to Office for Management & Budget opposing the LDT final rule
• Pathologists meet with Congress to oppose Medicare cuts
• Study examining the adverse impact of insurance interference
• Illinois pathologists and CAP secure new network adequacy law

Federal lawmakers have adjourned without passing legislation to stop payment cuts to Medicare services for physicians in 2025. House leadership initially proposed a 2.5% Medicare payment increase to offset the impending cut as part of a larger spending bill, but the proposal was eventually dropped along with many others after legislators expressed concern over the size of the year-end legislative package.

The CAP strongly opposes the 2.5% cut to Medicare payment for pathology services in 2025. The CAP will continue to urge the next administration and Congress to reverse the cut and enact long-term Medicare payment reform. Some lawmakers are already signaling their support for enacting a Medicare payment fix in March and apply it retroactively to January 1.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) filed its closing brief on December 23 in the federal court case over the regulation of laboratory-developed tests (LDTs). Read the FDA brief.

Previously, the CAP filed an amicus brief urging the court to vacate the FDA regulation for several reasons, including the ultimate impact on patient access to these critically important diagnostic tests and the agency failing to adequately justify the rule’s unsustainable costs that will hinder the development of LDTs.

A final decision is expected in 2025. The CAP will continue to update members on the status.

On December 20, the CAP held a media briefing about how pathologists and clinical laboratories are diagnosing and managing avian influenza (bird flu). CAP President Donald Karcher, MD, FCAP; Bobbi Pritt, MD, MS, FCAP, Chair, CAP Council on Scientific Affairs; and Ben Bradley, MD, PhD, FCAP, member of the CAP Microbiology Committee provided insights on how pathologists contribute to early detection, advancements in laboratory testing, and the efforts behind reference testing to address this public health concern.

Watch the recording online.

The CAP’s Pathologists Quality Registry has officially been re-approved as a Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR) by the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) for the 2025 performance year. The Pathologists Quality Registry helps pathologists get paid fairly for their services by developing quality measures that optimize scores and providing reporting solutions that ease compliance. In 2025, the Pathologists Quality Registry will support 14 quality measures, seven of which are only available in the CAP's registry.

Are you interested in learning how to maximize your MIPS score via the Pathologists Quality Registry? Contact mips@cap.org to connect with the CAP's expert staff.