S. 1220 · 111th Congress
Patient Access to Critical Lab Tests Act
Key: what the circles and colors mean
Each circle is a bill. The ring fills as it moves through Congress:
Under the number: the Yea · Nay count of its final (or latest) recorded vote. On a member's page, the small badge is how that member voted: Y Yea / Aye, N Nay / No, P Present, – Not voting.
Gold and violet are only for Yea and Nay; they never mean a party. A member's party is the letter on their photo.
Never voted on. It didn't reach a floor vote before the 111th Congress ended, so it expired. A bill has to be introduced again to be considered in a new Congress.
D
SpecterSponsor1 cosponsor · 1 D
1 signed on when it was introduced; the rest joined later. Cosponsors who withdrew aren't shown.
Patient Access to Critical Lab Tests Act - Expresses the sense of Congress that: (1) where practical, Medicare regulations and policies should be written to promote development of and access to certain highly specialized laboratory tests; and (2) certain Medicare regulations should be revised to permit laboratories furnishing such tests to bill for and be…
What it does: CRS summary · Introduced in Senate · Jun 9, 2009
Patient Access to Critical Lab Tests Act - Expresses the sense of Congress that: (1) where practical, Medicare regulations and policies should be written to promote development of and access to certain highly specialized laboratory tests; and (2) certain Medicare regulations should be revised to permit laboratories furnishing such tests to bill for and be paid directly by Medicare for furnishing them.
Declares that, whenever a laboratory performs a covered complex diagnostic laboratory test, with respect to a specimen collected from an individual during a period in which the individual is a hospital patient, if the test is performed after such period, the Secretary of Health and Human Services shall treat such test, for purposes of making direct payment to the laboratory, as if the specimen had been collected by the laboratory directly.
Defines "covered complex diagnostic laboratory test" as: (1) an analysis of DNA, RNA, chromosomes, proteins, or metabolites that detects, identifies, or quantitates genotypes, mutations, chromosomal changes, biochemical changes, cell response, or protein expression, or gene expression or similar method or is a cancer chemotherapy sensitivity assay or similar method, with certain exceptions; (2) a diagnostic X-ray or other diagnostic test; (3) one developed and performed by a laboratory independent of the hospital in which the specimen involved was collected, and not under any arrangements with such hospital; and (4) one not furnished by such hospital, directly or under any arrangements made by it.
Written by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. All summary versions on Congress.gov
About this bill and sources
Official title: Patient Access to Critical Lab Tests Act
Latest action (Jun 9, 2009): Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance. (text of measure as introduced: CR S6383)
Policy area: Health · Origin: Senate · Introduced: Jun 9, 2009
Official page on Congress.gov · Bill text (GovInfo) · Status record (XML)
No recorded floor vote found.