Over the past year, this blog has carried several entries about the California Clinical Lab Association effort to overturn Medicare LCDs as being inconsistent with federal authority to defer policymaking to private entities (e.g. Medicare contractors.) July 2014 blog,
here. April 2014,
here. The case got further than many attempts to sue HHS, because it reached oral argument a few months ago rather than just being dismissed on the paper record.
On May 20, 2015, a federal court ruled that
the case participants lacked standing to sue HHS in federal court.
- A patient (Jane Doe) had not suffered injury justifying standing, and
- the laboratory association had not exhausted its administrative appeals within the agency, before proceeding to federal court.
The decision is in the cloud,
here. Detailed analysis at Pathology Blawg,
here.
