TEST Act Advances in Senate After House Passage - Sept. 25, 2012

The House of Representatives passed on Sept. 19 the Taking Essential Steps for Testing (TEST) Act (H.R. 6118/ S. 3391). This NAPH-supported legislation would allow the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to use discretion in enforcing the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA). Specifically, it would allow CMS to determine whether a laboratory was acting in good faith when referring proficiency samples to outside laboratories before revoking the laboratory’s CLIA certificate. The legislation is headed to the Senate floor after being approved by the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee last week.