CCLA Board Meeting

Thursday, February 15, 2018

10:00am

Meeting Minutes

1. CALL TO ORDER

  • The meeting called to order by Kim Lerouxat 10:05am

2. MEETING ATTENDEES

Attendee / Company
Kim Leroux / Combimatrix
Anna Choi / Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
Bill Gardner / Physicians Diagnostic
Ken Neal / LabCorp
Jordon Keville / Davis Wright
Anna Choi / Cedars - Sinai
Stacey Casarez / West Pacific Medical
Seema Chhabra / NeoGenomics
Laurie Howard / Lab Corp
Curtis Johnson / Spectra
Emily Griffin / West Pacific Medical
Kyle Dunn / NeoGenomics
Jon Nakamoto / Quest Diagnostics
Richard Nicholson / West Pacific Medical
Carol Stoyla / Prometheus
Daniel Van Buren / Ascend Clinical

3. APPROVAL OF MEETING MINUTES (January, 2018)

January Meeting Minutes

  • Motion to approve, motion carried. Minutes approved as submitted.

HOT TOPICS

  1. Legislative Update-Political climate in Sacramento - 2 bills passed with the help of CCLA.
  2. AB 658 - Clinical laboratory license renewal fee has been suspended for 2 years. That is about $8.8 million for the lab community. The clinical lab renewal letters reflect the $0 due.
  3. AB659 - MediCal program, rate methodology and data submission. Places the program on a 3-year cycle as opposed to annually. Next data set due 2019.

2nd year of 2 year session. Bills that didn’t pass last year had until Jan 31st to pass through the

first house. New bills introduction deadline is tomorrow (2/16) - Last minute bills coming through, in the process of analyzing the bills.

Interesting interim session with all the sexual harassment cases that are coming to light. Renewed focus on addressing sexual harassment, special team to investigate harassment has been hired. Therefore 2 members resigned in December. Also in December Thomas Ridley resigned due to health issues.

3 positions open: special elections for these positions. Filled in June, only to be in seat for 4 months and then reelection in November.

Violation of code of ethics (does go away) unless the victims go to the police then criminal case. Wrongful termination also in the mix.

Senator Mendoza - allegations of inviting young females to review resume. Refuses to resign. Kevin DeLeon (Pro Temp of the Senate) moved out. Can be kicked out of senate by vote - Mendoza on paid leave of absence from Senate. Brand new senate rule - any senator who has taken a voluntary leave of absence can be made into an involuntary indefinite leave of absence. He is unable to return and cannot vote.

Democrats had ⅔ supermajority without republican votes, however now with 3 open seats the numbers are (Assembly) 51 sitting to vote but need 3 more to have supermajority, (Senate) 26 Democrat however need 27 for supermajority.

Female member of legislature, accused of sexual harassment 2 weeks ago. Voluntary, unpaid leave of absence. Cannot vote.

2018 is an election year and all these issues are creating major distractions.

Senator Josh Newman (D), gas tax passed by legislature last year. Ling Ling Chang (R) also ran. That district was always held by a Republican. He is under a recall because his vote was very unpopular with his district. Will be an interesting ballot in June.

Tony Atkins, first female leader of Senate, was also a speaker of the Assembly.

Only way to get propositions in the June ballot is if legislation places it there. 5 propositions by legislation for June 68-72. All others in November.

  • 68 - parks and water bond, $4 billion
  • 69 - new transportation taxes that passed last fall, in order to lock down those funds to only be used for transportation, constitutionally protect the funds
  • 70 - greenhouse gas reduction fund, help pay for costs to reduces greenhouse gas, need ⅔ vote to spend this money.
  • 71 - ballot measures technically become effective the day after it’s passed. 5 days after the Secretary of State says it’s passed
  • 72 - property taxes, new construction for rain water capture system. Encourage people to use rainwater, however if the construction is for rain water capture system then it'll turn off the triggering system to have a new assessment for property tax.

** In the past, the Governor has not favored any bonds, negotiation with governor’s office, ok'ed $8 billion in bonds - park and recreation $4 billion (Jun), $4 billion housing bond (Nov) but there’ll be another $8.9 billion water bond in Nov.

  1. Governor’s Budget Update

Revised budget was released on Jan 10th. $6 billion surplus. Governor suggested most of the money goes into reserves. Rainy day fund, can be used for fiscal emergency, $13.5 billion in the fund. Optional $3.5 billion also into that fund. Fully funding it 2 years earlier than anticipated. Wants to create a discretionary reserve fund $2.5 billion.

Extra money into schools, infrastructure/prisons. No big policy changes, only one time funds, no ongoing funds.

May 15th, May revisions, the State will know exactly how much money will come into the State. Anticipating a lot more money to come in due to stock market.

MediCal program - 2016 proposition increase in high income taxes to increase the MediCal program. Can possibly bring in $2 billion, the language gave a lot of discretion to the Dept of Finance to determine where the money could go. Prop 65 funds, claimed $1.6 billion deficit so no new money will be going into MediCal program. All money coming in is going into growth. Disengenuous to the voters since they voted for MediCal program but the Governor's using it to plug up other budgetary issues.

Discussion:

Lori - With the “fair market” rate for MediCare continuously dropping prices, MediCal will trigger price reduction since they only pay 80% of MediCare. AlsoMediCaid manage care also use that as a starting point. So should we go to MediCal to try to stop it?

Kristi - difficulty with that is because so many providers are getting reimbursed at 50% of MediCare, so more complicated conversation. But it’s something we need to start discussing.

ACLA is looking into it as well since California is not the only state that has these requirements. However, only MediCal is legislative, all others are just by practice.

Quest lawsuit is in appeals - MediCal brought it to market rate and then took 10% off the rates. We are currently being paid 90% of the market rates.

  1. Review of Legislative Status Report (LSR) - Newly Introduced Bills
  2. AB180 - MediCal reporting DHCS has to complete report semi-annually instead of quarterly. Went all the way through assembly and senate (3rd reading file) and placed in inactive file. Parked the bill and took language and put in committee bill (non-controversial clean up bill) and got it through and signed and went into law. This bill is being held at the last step so if they want to pass a bill, they can take the language and place into this bill and pass it to get it to the governor’s desk.
  3. AB613 - plasma donation centers, total protein test, digital refractometer test. This bill was also put on hold and placed in inactive file because the year before the governor vetoed the bill because his office showed it wasn’t sure of its stance
  4. AB1788,89,90 - valley fever
  5. SB152 - same as AB180 potentially hijack-able
  6. SB945 - breast and cervical cancer treatment program
  1. CMS RFI - changes and update to CLIA

CCLA to submit comment to CMS, Christine put in a lot of time to submit a survey monkey and sent it out to all the membership laboratories, we got results (8) complete answers and were very well thought out and on point and gave good feedback. Christine will have a draft comment and will have a draft comment letter and will route to Kristi. The letter will be sent to all membership labs.

At the end of the CMS RFI, they have an open ended statement that asks if there are any other issues or changes that we would like addressed by them. Clarification from CMS, matter of interpretation, maybe should be clarified further and if anything (issues/recommendation) that any lab has been working on that you want it to be anonymous just send information to Kristi.

Due back on March 12th

  1. CCLA LAB-PAC

Political action committee to attend events support those members who support clinical lab issues.

$18,000 in account. Please make a donation.

  1. CCLA-committee membership

If you’d like to join a committee please let us know. You do not have to be a board member to join a committee. i.e. Annual conference, conference hotel selection committees

  • MediCal committee (get together quarterly with MediCal, fee for service, provider enrollment) - reimbursement questions, provider enrollment since moratorium is gone, forward them to CCLA. Can participate by phone or in person to ask any questions to MediCal.
  • MediCare committee in SD, Xifin hosts the MediCare committee meetings. On a quarterly basis, Palmetto and Noridian is present to answer any questions.
  • Legislature committee - assembly - health, appropriation, budget, subcommittee #1 (HHS issues) senate - health, appropriation, budget, subcommittee #3

Please stay engaged and find out who your representative is for the location of your clinical lab. Find their district office, normally on Fridays they’re there. Educate the members.

Medical necessity article - CCLA also acts as a clearing house of information. If you see any articles that’s informative please forward to Kristi.

Possibility a bill sponsored by CHA regarding what MLTs can do - to expand what they can do. A blood smear review, urinalysis, moderate complexity blood typing

Robert Footlik - CLTAC committee rumors, may put out draft regulations this year, and he will review them for CCLA.

4. BUSINESS REPORTS

  • Treasurer’s Report- Ken Neal

As of 2/15/18, the balance is $129,353.98.

  • Membership 2018 Update

Please renew membership, invoices were sent via email. Associate membership - those who do not have a clinical lab but want to support the lab industry (couriers, vendors, delivery, printing) $700 - comment: $700 may be too expensive, also maybe they’ll be mentioned at the annual meeting to give them exposure.

  • Industry Developments

None

  • Annual Conference – Nov 7-9th Hilton Costa Mesa, CA - registration is open, room block $209

5. CLINICAL LABORATORY TECHNOLOGY ADVISORY COMMITTEE (CLTAC) - Bill Gardner

Kristi - No meeting since Jan - online renewals behind

6. MEDICARE CONTRACTOR ADVISORY COMMITTEE – Jonathan Nakamoto/Ken Neal

H. pylori testing discussion, statin C decision guideline is 2 years behind the times, 2/1-4/13 comment period.

7. CCLA MEDICARE COMMITTEE – Lale White

Postponed due to scheduling issues to 3/2/18

8. CCLA MEDI-CAL COMMITTEE – Lale White

2/21 next week

9. NEW BUSINESS

None

ADJOURNMENT

  • Meeting was adjourned at 11:56 PST.

Respectfully Submitted,

Anna Choi

Next Meeting: PLEASE REGISTER/RSVP

Thursday, March 15, 2018

Teleconference 9:30am

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