CAP Rallies Support for Additional $10 Billion to Expand Medical Supply Production

As the House works on its version of a legislative package to address the COVID-19 pandemic, the CAP urged Senate leaders to support testing services and laboratory frontline providers as they craft their own pandemic relief bill. The CAP is asking senators to increase resources for testing, enhance existing relief programs, and offer additional financial assistance to pathologists and laboratories.

In a February 19 letter to Sens. Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell, the CAP reviewed the various challenges pathologists have confronted throughout the testing process during the pandemic. “The current pandemic has brought to the forefront the vital role of pathologists and the value that they bring to medicine. Pathologists are integrally involved in direct mitigation of the COVID-19 crisis, including testing for accurate and timely diagnosis, as well as work on potential cures,” wrote CAP President Patrick Godbey, MD, FCAP. “Now more than ever patients and their treating physicians are relying on the expertise of pathologists. Pathologists and the services they provide, including ensuring laboratory quality in communities across the United States, are at the foundation of our health care system. We cannot allow this foundation to erode any further.”

$10 Billion to Expand Supply Production

The CAP asked the Senate leaders to pass legislation to ensure timely and accurate COVID-19 testing to patients throughout the country. For example, smaller health systems have struggled to secure supplies, limiting the capacity for rapid testing for triage in emergency rooms, psychiatric programs, women who are in active labor. To mitigate supply shortages, the CAP supports an additional $10 billion investment in expanding domestic manufacturing for pandemic supplies, including those used throughout the testing process and any efforts to fully use the Defense Production Act.

The CAP also supported increasing funds for COVID-19 tests, emphasizing that funds should be used for a broad range of tests, including SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid tests, delivered in various communities and settings. The CAP also supported replenishing the Provider Relief Fund with $35 billion (setting aside 20% of the funds for rural hospitals) and investing $30 billion in the Disaster Relief Fund, which would offer federal reimbursement for critical emergency response resources.

The CAP also requested that the government cover multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) respiratory viral panel (RVP) tests. Many respiratory pathogens present similarly in patients and it is difficult to differentiate between influenza, coronavirus, rhinoviruses, and many other pathogens without accurate testing. In addition, the CAP urged Congress to fund and expand hazard pay measures available for health care providers, including the full range of staff and professionals within pathology and laboratory medicine.