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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services made updates to specimen collection fees and travel allowance payments for 2025.
Effective Jan. 1, the general specimen collection fee increased from $8.83 to $9.09. The general specimen collection fee increased to $11.09 for those specimens collected by a trained technician from a Medicare patient at a skilled nursing facility or by a laboratory on behalf of a home health agency.
The travel allowance mileage rate has been updated to $1.20. The flat-rate travel allowance, applied when a trained technician travels 20 miles or less to one location for one or more Medicare patients, is calculated by multiplying the travel allowance mileage rate by 10 and then dividing by the number of all eligible Medicare patients.
Travel allowances are only paid when specimens are collected from a homebound patient or an inpatient at a facility other than a hospital. Travel allowance-eligible miles are calculated beginning at the laboratory or the point of departure for the trained technician to travel for specimen collection purposes and ending at the destination where the specimen collection takes place. Laboratories may maintain electronic documentation of miles traveled to cover transportation and personnel expenses of these trained technicians.
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