President Bush
has released a proposed FY 2009 Federal budget calling for
nationwide competitive bidding for Medicare’s Part B clinical
laboratory services with an estimated savings of $110 million in
2009 and $2.29 billion over FY 2009-2013. No mention is made in
the budget to freeze or cut the current Medicare Part B fee
schedule.
Analysis: President
Bush’s call for nationwide competitive bidding beginning January
1, 2009, means that there is no need to proceed with a
competitive bidding demonstration project because the results of
that project will not be available for at least three to four
years. Since this is the same proposal President Bush made last
year, expect that Congress will NOT adopt it. However,
there is severe pressure to produce savings to the Medicare
program. This means that Congress will be looking at other ways
to extract savings from almost all Medicare providers (except
perhaps managed care companies), including clinical
laboratories. Therefore, expect a battle later this year over
proposals to freeze or cut Medicare’s Part B fee schedule or to
reduce Medicare expenditures for clinical laboratory services in
some other way.
2-5-08
