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Some lab fees soon will be billed to Tricare patients
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2014/01/11/2987935/some-lab-fees-soon-will-be-billed.htmlSome lab fees soon will be billed to Tricare patients
By TOM PHILPOTT
Contributing Writer
January 11, 2014
Tricare beneficiaries soon will have to pay out of pocket for certain diagnostic genetic tests that their civilian physicians order but that the Defense Health Agency doesn’t view as appropriate or medically necessary.
In January 2013, without notice to beneficiaries or to health care providers, Tricare stopped reimbursing clinical laboratories for more than 100 genetic or “molecular pathology” tests.
Beneficiaries haven’t complained yet because the laboratories affected are still providing the tests that physicians order at no charge, said Julie Khani, vice president of the American Clinical Laboratory Association, which lobbies on behalf of the affected laboratories.
To date, labs have provided about $10 million worth of free tests to Tricare users. “That’s obviously unsustainable,” Khani said. Most of these tests cost about $60, but a few carry charges of several thousand dollars.