Transcription

• Brittani Riddle

  Laboratories may be off-site, but not out of mind. Plus, opportunities for pathologists to influence health care policy. Coming up next on the Path News Network. This is the Path News Network Daily Edition, powered by the College of American Pathologists. I'm Brittani Riddle. Today is Tuesday, August 26. Here's the latest news. Directing an off-site laboratory can be challenging. with high expectations and limited day-to-day visibility. The CAP's Dr. Stacy Beal and Dr. Jesse Kresak are leading a CAP25 course to help you direct your off-site labs with confidence. The session will cover regulatory essentials, tips for effective communication, strategies for smart responsibility delegation, and how to make site visits count. Click the link in the show notes to register today. August may be winding down, But the fight for pathology isn't slowing down. CAP members still have time to urge Congress to act on critical issues like strengthening the physician workforce and protecting cancer research funding. Use the link to the CAP Action Center in the show notes to make your voice heard. The CAP works hard to protect pathologists' interests at the state level by partnering with state pathology societies. The CAP has helped block harmful legislation and protect the scope of practice for pathologists across the country. You can view our state of success legislative wins at CAP.org. Finally, rapid policy shifts and an ever-evolving legislative landscape can pose challenges for pathologists. These challenges are also an opportunity to advocate on behalf of the specialty. Here to talk more about that is Dr. Stephen Black-Shaffer. What are the biggest changes in the political landscape affecting pathologists?

• Dr. Stephen Black-Schaffer

  The current administration is not as accepting of the standard paradigms of science in general, certainly medical science, and have expressed their reservations by closing various groups that pathologists have relied upon to provide guidance, such as the Clinical Laboratories Improvement Act Committee, CLIAC. This was an entity which enabled CLIA regulations under which laboratories operate in the United States to be updated, enabled us to ask them questions, and for them to come up with new policies. We didn't always agree with the policies they came up with, but there was a source of determination that was available to us. This is a small subset of all the various groups within the federal government which have been realigned, downsized, or even closed. So I can't say that pathology has been specifically singled out and affected. But between that and the general reorientation of funding away from health care services, this has directly and indirectly affected pathology and laboratories.

• Brittani Riddle

  And how are those changes affecting patients?

• Dr. Stephen Black-Schaffer

  Well, pathology services are, generally speaking, expected to pay their way in any given locality. I mean, hospitals know that at any given time, there are going to be loss leader services they need to provide. But overall, the bottom line for any given health care organization, whether it's a laboratory or a hospital or an integrated health care delivery system, has to balance out. And the most cost-effective way often to provide laboratory services is through MART centralization. That is to say, you take your tests of all different sorts, both anatomic pathology and clinical laboratory tests, and you centralize them. And the more you centralize them, the more you get economies of scale and efficiency. But you get logistical problems, delays in testing, disconnects. between those people who are doing the interpretive services and the clinicians who are actually treating the patients. So you went into issues of disconnection of what should be an integrated system of care for any given patient, as well as delays in care.

• Brittani Riddle

  So how do we turn these political challenges into opportunities for advocacy and advancing healthcare?

• Dr. Stephen Black-Schaffer

  There are opportunities. You're quite right. I'm smiling basically because you have to work harder these days, it seems, to see things that way. It's important, maybe more important than ever, to try to do that. And I would say that on the other side of those efforts to seek efficiency and those doubts about the immediate value of scientific progress that the administration seems to be manifesting. There is also a lot of doubt in the necessity of all the regulatory burdens under which we operate. It is a balancing it. You really, really want to know that when you get a test result, you can rely on it.

• Brittani Riddle

  There's also a session about this topic at CAP25. What are things you hope members learn from that session?

• Dr. Stephen Black-Schaffer

  I hope that they will take away the fact that although things are being very substantially changed in many ways. The college has continued to maintain its clear focus on the quality of the services that we as pathologists and as directors of laboratories offer to patients. That we have always been advocating for this, that we're trying to be flexible and take advantage of the opportunities here, push back where we think that things are being done in ways that are not as well informed as they need to be.

• Brittani Riddle

  Thank you to my guest, Dr. Black-Schaffer, for joining me. That's all for today on the Path News Network Daily Edition, powered by the College of American Pathologists. Subscribe to this show on your favorite podcast platforms. Get more news like this in our member newsletters on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We're back tomorrow at 5 a.m. Eastern Time. I'm Brittani Riddle. Thank you for listening.