House Passes Appropriations Bill, Votes to Postpone Medicare Cuts to Clinical Laboratory Fees

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2026 (H.R. 7148) on Jan. 22 with a vote of 341-88. This bill includes a provision to ensure current rates in the Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule (CLFS) remain in effect through at least Jan. 1, 2027. The bill now moves to the Senate for a vote this week.

The College of American Pathologists (CAP) applauded the congressional action, stating that it provides “significant financial relief to clinical labs, which faced cuts to tests of up to 15 percent on Jan. 30.” The CAP reiterated its longstanding support for the Reforming and Enhancing Sustainable Updates to Laboratory Testing Services (RESULTS) Act (S. 2761/H.R. 5269). The RESULTS Act would reform flaws enacted by the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2024 (PAMA) primarily by requiring the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to update and streamline commercial payer rate data collection using information from an independent third-party database to calculate Medicare CLFS rates.  

“We appreciate the House’s passage of legislation to halt these cuts and now urge the Senate to swiftly enact the bill,” CAP President Qihui “Jim” Zhai, M.D., said in a statement. “Doing so will give Congress an additional year to reform the flawed PAMA rate-setting process for clinical laboratory services and ease unnecessary administrative burdens on laboratories.”

If the bill passes in the Senate, both chambers will vote again for final approval of the reconciled version of the bill before it reaches the president’s desk.

Sources:

https://appropriations.house.gov/news/press-releases/house-passes-hr-7148-and-hr-7147-completing-fy26-appropriations-america-first-0

https://www.cap.org/advocacy/latest-news-and-practice-data/january-23-2026

https://cap.action.aristotle.com/alert/bedbf17b-c250-424d-ae07-24707ca7c6ed