Description
December 9, 2025
CAP Launches 21 New Proficiency Testing and External Quality Assessment Programs for 2026
Medicare Physician Fee Schedule
Submit your lab's PT order today
Tell Congress to stop flawed Medicare payment cuts
Together, we can stop the cuts
What pathologists are telling their lawmakers before New Year's Eve
Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.
Transcription
The clock is ticking for pathologists to urge Congress to stop pavement cuts before January, and laboratories still have time to renew their proficiency testing programs for 2026. Coming up next on the PATH News Network. Welcome to the PATH News Network Daily Edition, powered by the College of American Pathologists. I'm Brittani Riddle. Today is Tuesday, December 9th. Here's the latest news. With only a few days left in the legislative year, the CAP is still pushing to persuade Congress to stop payment cuts before January. Medicare payments will be cut by 2.5% under next year's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Rule. It takes less than a minute for a pathologist to send an action alert to Congress, urging them to stop the cuts. Find more in today's show notes. While continuing to advocate against these arbitrary cuts, the CAP is also preparing pathologists for what's ahead. Last week, CAP experts spoke at our Medicare Fee Final Rule webinar. Stay connected to our social media channels to watch the on-demand video later this week. Pathologists, be sure to mark your calendars for the 2026 Pathologist Leadership summit and spring House of Delegates meeting. happening April 25th through 28th in Washington, D.C. Registration details are coming soon. Finally, laboratories still have time to renew their participation in CAP proficiency testing programs for the coming year during the order renewal process. Joining me to talk about the new microbiology programs is Dr. Benjamin Bradley, a member of the CAP's Microbiology Committee. Dr. Bradley, welcome to Path News. You mentioned the dengue virus, which has been a trending topic globally this year in the news, and there's a new dengue virus program being offered. Can you tell us more about this exciting program and how it addresses a growing public and clinical health need?
Dengue virus is a mosquito-borne infectious disease, and its kind of colloquial name in the medical literature is breakbone fever. And that really just highlights kind of how painful this condition is it causes really bad joint pain, muscle pain, things like that. Folks can get really, really sick from this. And, you know, historically, these dengue virus is kind of limited to certain geographic areas. But what we've started to see over time is that area where dengue can be continued to expand. And so we've actually had cases in the U.S. that we've seen now of local transmission events. But primarily, this is something that kind of happens in travelers where they may go to an pandemic. region, come back and then start developing signs and symptoms. And in these situations of travelers who return with a fever, there's a very broad differential diagnosis you have to maintain with dengue virus being one of them. So for labs to bring on dengue virus testing, to be able to identify this earlier, that can help clinicians get a sense of what they're dealing with that might limit the number of additional tests they need to order or maybe that would stop a physician from giving this patient unnecessary antibiotics or something like that along the way. So that's kind of really the big kind of impact of having this dengue virus serology available now in the labs.
You're a member of the CAP's Microbiology Committee. What role does the committee play in identifying and developing new PT programs like these?
Yeah. So, you know, fortunately, it's a group of a lot of really great scientists and physicians. And we kind of try to anticipate sort of what emerging needs are. So sometimes it's because maybe some new technologies have come out, whether that's, you know, molecular assays or serology assays that labs are starting to bring on. And we say, you know, okay, there's kind of a critical mass here of testing that's available in the U.S. or internationally. And we want to make sure that these labs are doing a good job with their testing, knowing that their testing is performing how it should be, and being able to compare that to their peers. So that's really what motivates us to bring on these PT programs. And for me in particular, something that I'm really interested in is kind of the role that clinical microbiology labs can play in public health and responding to emerging infectious diseases as well.
So looking ahead, how do you see the evolution of PT programs shaping the future of microbiology testing and laboratory standards?
You know, with PT material, it really is kind of a two-way street. Obviously, we send this material to labs to make sure that their policies and practices are in line, that they're getting detected results when it needs to be detected or getting, if we're doing viral load testing, you know, a viral load that's in that needed region. But there's also a flow of information back from the participants to the CAP where we can say, okay, let's get a sense of sort of what testing capacity exists in the U.S. or internationally for identifying this pathogen and what kind of platforms are being used. Are we seeing any differences between platforms or performance changes that might indicate maybe an assay needs to be updated or something like that? So kind of going back to the SARS-CoV-2 example, So... You know, that virus was mutating a lot very early on when it was emerging. And there were some assays that were having target failures to detect it because of the mutations in the virus. And so if we're sending out PT material, we can start to see maybe if there's a manufacturer or an assay or something that's dropping off or changing in a way that we're not suspecting. And so that helps us to kind of understand the epidemiology of these viruses that changes and helps us kind of work with laboratories, work with manufacturers to say, do we need to be making changes to these assays as well to adapt for the viruses as they change?
That's all for today on the Path News Network Daily Edition. Thank you again to today's guest, Dr. Benjamin Bradley. You can find more about all of today's stories in the show notes and in our member newsletters on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We're back tomorrow at 5 a.m. Eastern Time. Have a wonderful day.
Description
December 9, 2025
CAP Launches 21 New Proficiency Testing and External Quality Assessment Programs for 2026
Medicare Physician Fee Schedule
Submit your lab's PT order today
Tell Congress to stop flawed Medicare payment cuts
Together, we can stop the cuts
What pathologists are telling their lawmakers before New Year's Eve
Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.
Transcription
The clock is ticking for pathologists to urge Congress to stop pavement cuts before January, and laboratories still have time to renew their proficiency testing programs for 2026. Coming up next on the PATH News Network. Welcome to the PATH News Network Daily Edition, powered by the College of American Pathologists. I'm Brittani Riddle. Today is Tuesday, December 9th. Here's the latest news. With only a few days left in the legislative year, the CAP is still pushing to persuade Congress to stop payment cuts before January. Medicare payments will be cut by 2.5% under next year's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Rule. It takes less than a minute for a pathologist to send an action alert to Congress, urging them to stop the cuts. Find more in today's show notes. While continuing to advocate against these arbitrary cuts, the CAP is also preparing pathologists for what's ahead. Last week, CAP experts spoke at our Medicare Fee Final Rule webinar. Stay connected to our social media channels to watch the on-demand video later this week. Pathologists, be sure to mark your calendars for the 2026 Pathologist Leadership summit and spring House of Delegates meeting. happening April 25th through 28th in Washington, D.C. Registration details are coming soon. Finally, laboratories still have time to renew their participation in CAP proficiency testing programs for the coming year during the order renewal process. Joining me to talk about the new microbiology programs is Dr. Benjamin Bradley, a member of the CAP's Microbiology Committee. Dr. Bradley, welcome to Path News. You mentioned the dengue virus, which has been a trending topic globally this year in the news, and there's a new dengue virus program being offered. Can you tell us more about this exciting program and how it addresses a growing public and clinical health need?
Dengue virus is a mosquito-borne infectious disease, and its kind of colloquial name in the medical literature is breakbone fever. And that really just highlights kind of how painful this condition is it causes really bad joint pain, muscle pain, things like that. Folks can get really, really sick from this. And, you know, historically, these dengue virus is kind of limited to certain geographic areas. But what we've started to see over time is that area where dengue can be continued to expand. And so we've actually had cases in the U.S. that we've seen now of local transmission events. But primarily, this is something that kind of happens in travelers where they may go to an pandemic. region, come back and then start developing signs and symptoms. And in these situations of travelers who return with a fever, there's a very broad differential diagnosis you have to maintain with dengue virus being one of them. So for labs to bring on dengue virus testing, to be able to identify this earlier, that can help clinicians get a sense of what they're dealing with that might limit the number of additional tests they need to order or maybe that would stop a physician from giving this patient unnecessary antibiotics or something like that along the way. So that's kind of really the big kind of impact of having this dengue virus serology available now in the labs.
You're a member of the CAP's Microbiology Committee. What role does the committee play in identifying and developing new PT programs like these?
Yeah. So, you know, fortunately, it's a group of a lot of really great scientists and physicians. And we kind of try to anticipate sort of what emerging needs are. So sometimes it's because maybe some new technologies have come out, whether that's, you know, molecular assays or serology assays that labs are starting to bring on. And we say, you know, okay, there's kind of a critical mass here of testing that's available in the U.S. or internationally. And we want to make sure that these labs are doing a good job with their testing, knowing that their testing is performing how it should be, and being able to compare that to their peers. So that's really what motivates us to bring on these PT programs. And for me in particular, something that I'm really interested in is kind of the role that clinical microbiology labs can play in public health and responding to emerging infectious diseases as well.
So looking ahead, how do you see the evolution of PT programs shaping the future of microbiology testing and laboratory standards?
You know, with PT material, it really is kind of a two-way street. Obviously, we send this material to labs to make sure that their policies and practices are in line, that they're getting detected results when it needs to be detected or getting, if we're doing viral load testing, you know, a viral load that's in that needed region. But there's also a flow of information back from the participants to the CAP where we can say, okay, let's get a sense of sort of what testing capacity exists in the U.S. or internationally for identifying this pathogen and what kind of platforms are being used. Are we seeing any differences between platforms or performance changes that might indicate maybe an assay needs to be updated or something like that? So kind of going back to the SARS-CoV-2 example, So... You know, that virus was mutating a lot very early on when it was emerging. And there were some assays that were having target failures to detect it because of the mutations in the virus. And so if we're sending out PT material, we can start to see maybe if there's a manufacturer or an assay or something that's dropping off or changing in a way that we're not suspecting. And so that helps us to kind of understand the epidemiology of these viruses that changes and helps us kind of work with laboratories, work with manufacturers to say, do we need to be making changes to these assays as well to adapt for the viruses as they change?
That's all for today on the Path News Network Daily Edition. Thank you again to today's guest, Dr. Benjamin Bradley. You can find more about all of today's stories in the show notes and in our member newsletters on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We're back tomorrow at 5 a.m. Eastern Time. Have a wonderful day.
Share
Embed
You may also like
Description
December 9, 2025
CAP Launches 21 New Proficiency Testing and External Quality Assessment Programs for 2026
Medicare Physician Fee Schedule
Submit your lab's PT order today
Tell Congress to stop flawed Medicare payment cuts
Together, we can stop the cuts
What pathologists are telling their lawmakers before New Year's Eve
Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.
Transcription
The clock is ticking for pathologists to urge Congress to stop pavement cuts before January, and laboratories still have time to renew their proficiency testing programs for 2026. Coming up next on the PATH News Network. Welcome to the PATH News Network Daily Edition, powered by the College of American Pathologists. I'm Brittani Riddle. Today is Tuesday, December 9th. Here's the latest news. With only a few days left in the legislative year, the CAP is still pushing to persuade Congress to stop payment cuts before January. Medicare payments will be cut by 2.5% under next year's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Rule. It takes less than a minute for a pathologist to send an action alert to Congress, urging them to stop the cuts. Find more in today's show notes. While continuing to advocate against these arbitrary cuts, the CAP is also preparing pathologists for what's ahead. Last week, CAP experts spoke at our Medicare Fee Final Rule webinar. Stay connected to our social media channels to watch the on-demand video later this week. Pathologists, be sure to mark your calendars for the 2026 Pathologist Leadership summit and spring House of Delegates meeting. happening April 25th through 28th in Washington, D.C. Registration details are coming soon. Finally, laboratories still have time to renew their participation in CAP proficiency testing programs for the coming year during the order renewal process. Joining me to talk about the new microbiology programs is Dr. Benjamin Bradley, a member of the CAP's Microbiology Committee. Dr. Bradley, welcome to Path News. You mentioned the dengue virus, which has been a trending topic globally this year in the news, and there's a new dengue virus program being offered. Can you tell us more about this exciting program and how it addresses a growing public and clinical health need?
Dengue virus is a mosquito-borne infectious disease, and its kind of colloquial name in the medical literature is breakbone fever. And that really just highlights kind of how painful this condition is it causes really bad joint pain, muscle pain, things like that. Folks can get really, really sick from this. And, you know, historically, these dengue virus is kind of limited to certain geographic areas. But what we've started to see over time is that area where dengue can be continued to expand. And so we've actually had cases in the U.S. that we've seen now of local transmission events. But primarily, this is something that kind of happens in travelers where they may go to an pandemic. region, come back and then start developing signs and symptoms. And in these situations of travelers who return with a fever, there's a very broad differential diagnosis you have to maintain with dengue virus being one of them. So for labs to bring on dengue virus testing, to be able to identify this earlier, that can help clinicians get a sense of what they're dealing with that might limit the number of additional tests they need to order or maybe that would stop a physician from giving this patient unnecessary antibiotics or something like that along the way. So that's kind of really the big kind of impact of having this dengue virus serology available now in the labs.
You're a member of the CAP's Microbiology Committee. What role does the committee play in identifying and developing new PT programs like these?
Yeah. So, you know, fortunately, it's a group of a lot of really great scientists and physicians. And we kind of try to anticipate sort of what emerging needs are. So sometimes it's because maybe some new technologies have come out, whether that's, you know, molecular assays or serology assays that labs are starting to bring on. And we say, you know, okay, there's kind of a critical mass here of testing that's available in the U.S. or internationally. And we want to make sure that these labs are doing a good job with their testing, knowing that their testing is performing how it should be, and being able to compare that to their peers. So that's really what motivates us to bring on these PT programs. And for me in particular, something that I'm really interested in is kind of the role that clinical microbiology labs can play in public health and responding to emerging infectious diseases as well.
So looking ahead, how do you see the evolution of PT programs shaping the future of microbiology testing and laboratory standards?
You know, with PT material, it really is kind of a two-way street. Obviously, we send this material to labs to make sure that their policies and practices are in line, that they're getting detected results when it needs to be detected or getting, if we're doing viral load testing, you know, a viral load that's in that needed region. But there's also a flow of information back from the participants to the CAP where we can say, okay, let's get a sense of sort of what testing capacity exists in the U.S. or internationally for identifying this pathogen and what kind of platforms are being used. Are we seeing any differences between platforms or performance changes that might indicate maybe an assay needs to be updated or something like that? So kind of going back to the SARS-CoV-2 example, So... You know, that virus was mutating a lot very early on when it was emerging. And there were some assays that were having target failures to detect it because of the mutations in the virus. And so if we're sending out PT material, we can start to see maybe if there's a manufacturer or an assay or something that's dropping off or changing in a way that we're not suspecting. And so that helps us to kind of understand the epidemiology of these viruses that changes and helps us kind of work with laboratories, work with manufacturers to say, do we need to be making changes to these assays as well to adapt for the viruses as they change?
That's all for today on the Path News Network Daily Edition. Thank you again to today's guest, Dr. Benjamin Bradley. You can find more about all of today's stories in the show notes and in our member newsletters on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We're back tomorrow at 5 a.m. Eastern Time. Have a wonderful day.
Description
December 9, 2025
CAP Launches 21 New Proficiency Testing and External Quality Assessment Programs for 2026
Medicare Physician Fee Schedule
Submit your lab's PT order today
Tell Congress to stop flawed Medicare payment cuts
Together, we can stop the cuts
What pathologists are telling their lawmakers before New Year's Eve
Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.
Transcription
The clock is ticking for pathologists to urge Congress to stop pavement cuts before January, and laboratories still have time to renew their proficiency testing programs for 2026. Coming up next on the PATH News Network. Welcome to the PATH News Network Daily Edition, powered by the College of American Pathologists. I'm Brittani Riddle. Today is Tuesday, December 9th. Here's the latest news. With only a few days left in the legislative year, the CAP is still pushing to persuade Congress to stop payment cuts before January. Medicare payments will be cut by 2.5% under next year's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Rule. It takes less than a minute for a pathologist to send an action alert to Congress, urging them to stop the cuts. Find more in today's show notes. While continuing to advocate against these arbitrary cuts, the CAP is also preparing pathologists for what's ahead. Last week, CAP experts spoke at our Medicare Fee Final Rule webinar. Stay connected to our social media channels to watch the on-demand video later this week. Pathologists, be sure to mark your calendars for the 2026 Pathologist Leadership summit and spring House of Delegates meeting. happening April 25th through 28th in Washington, D.C. Registration details are coming soon. Finally, laboratories still have time to renew their participation in CAP proficiency testing programs for the coming year during the order renewal process. Joining me to talk about the new microbiology programs is Dr. Benjamin Bradley, a member of the CAP's Microbiology Committee. Dr. Bradley, welcome to Path News. You mentioned the dengue virus, which has been a trending topic globally this year in the news, and there's a new dengue virus program being offered. Can you tell us more about this exciting program and how it addresses a growing public and clinical health need?
Dengue virus is a mosquito-borne infectious disease, and its kind of colloquial name in the medical literature is breakbone fever. And that really just highlights kind of how painful this condition is it causes really bad joint pain, muscle pain, things like that. Folks can get really, really sick from this. And, you know, historically, these dengue virus is kind of limited to certain geographic areas. But what we've started to see over time is that area where dengue can be continued to expand. And so we've actually had cases in the U.S. that we've seen now of local transmission events. But primarily, this is something that kind of happens in travelers where they may go to an pandemic. region, come back and then start developing signs and symptoms. And in these situations of travelers who return with a fever, there's a very broad differential diagnosis you have to maintain with dengue virus being one of them. So for labs to bring on dengue virus testing, to be able to identify this earlier, that can help clinicians get a sense of what they're dealing with that might limit the number of additional tests they need to order or maybe that would stop a physician from giving this patient unnecessary antibiotics or something like that along the way. So that's kind of really the big kind of impact of having this dengue virus serology available now in the labs.
You're a member of the CAP's Microbiology Committee. What role does the committee play in identifying and developing new PT programs like these?
Yeah. So, you know, fortunately, it's a group of a lot of really great scientists and physicians. And we kind of try to anticipate sort of what emerging needs are. So sometimes it's because maybe some new technologies have come out, whether that's, you know, molecular assays or serology assays that labs are starting to bring on. And we say, you know, okay, there's kind of a critical mass here of testing that's available in the U.S. or internationally. And we want to make sure that these labs are doing a good job with their testing, knowing that their testing is performing how it should be, and being able to compare that to their peers. So that's really what motivates us to bring on these PT programs. And for me in particular, something that I'm really interested in is kind of the role that clinical microbiology labs can play in public health and responding to emerging infectious diseases as well.
So looking ahead, how do you see the evolution of PT programs shaping the future of microbiology testing and laboratory standards?
You know, with PT material, it really is kind of a two-way street. Obviously, we send this material to labs to make sure that their policies and practices are in line, that they're getting detected results when it needs to be detected or getting, if we're doing viral load testing, you know, a viral load that's in that needed region. But there's also a flow of information back from the participants to the CAP where we can say, okay, let's get a sense of sort of what testing capacity exists in the U.S. or internationally for identifying this pathogen and what kind of platforms are being used. Are we seeing any differences between platforms or performance changes that might indicate maybe an assay needs to be updated or something like that? So kind of going back to the SARS-CoV-2 example, So... You know, that virus was mutating a lot very early on when it was emerging. And there were some assays that were having target failures to detect it because of the mutations in the virus. And so if we're sending out PT material, we can start to see maybe if there's a manufacturer or an assay or something that's dropping off or changing in a way that we're not suspecting. And so that helps us to kind of understand the epidemiology of these viruses that changes and helps us kind of work with laboratories, work with manufacturers to say, do we need to be making changes to these assays as well to adapt for the viruses as they change?
That's all for today on the Path News Network Daily Edition. Thank you again to today's guest, Dr. Benjamin Bradley. You can find more about all of today's stories in the show notes and in our member newsletters on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We're back tomorrow at 5 a.m. Eastern Time. Have a wonderful day.
Share
Embed
You may also like
