Early in the coronavirus pandemic, the United States struggled to ramp up testing. Here’s how Medicare could have helped.
The Medicare program paid just $51 for the test through April 14. That’s around half the $96 price tag for a similar test for the flu, and about one-third of the cost for a respiratory panel. The result was another setback early in the coronavirus pandemic on the very companies that could have more quickly ramped up testing of patients.
“So, that should increase testing capacity across the country,” Verma said. “There's a lot of unused capacity.” Renee Ennis, the chief financial officer for Tricore Reference Labs in New Mexico, said the coronavirus diagnostic test costs her company $52 to $73. That doesn’t include the cost of additional supplies, or the original machine investment.
By the time Medicare increased the test reimbursement, her members had performed 2.1 million tests because they were “completely focused on doing all they could to meet patient needs for testing.” Now, the higher reimbursements aren’t retroactive. Birenbaum said in an interview Thursday that some of his members were being paid as little as $36 per test. That’s because Medicare allows local modifications to the price of the COVID-19 diagnostic test. In contrast, the $96 influenza test and $148 respiratory panel are consistent nationally.
Adam Schechter, the CEO of LabCorp, said Wednesday that the company is attempting to get all customers to pay the $100 rate now. Whether the insurance companies pay the full amount is another story. He said he’ll know the outcome of the negotiations in a few days.
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