In order to protect California jobs and preserve the state’s ability to provide critical services to Medi-Cal patients, Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris is reintroducing legislation to remove the 80% of Medicare cap on reimbursement rates for laboratories in California.
Congressional action in 2018 upended the intent of California’s 2012 Budget Act which maintained a market-based method to determine the fee-for-service Medi-Cal reimbursement rate for lab services. The result was an automatic cut to our carefully calculated Medi-Cal lab rates. Without a change in policy, California will continue to undermine providers’ and laboratories’ ability to confront the COVID-19 pandemic and other health crises such as the ongoing STI epidemic. With the removal of the cap, California labs would be able to avoid this federally triggered cut and operate how the state originally intended.