Get the holiday Thanksgiving week off to an exciting start by listening in on the quarterly AMA PLA Applications public conference call, November 19, 2018.
With a warning that these links may be updated by AMA, the home page for PLA code policy is here. The listing of current long descriptors (circa 79) as finalized in September for October 1, 2017, is here.
The next public panel call is November 19, 2018, at 7 pm CT (8 pm ET). Register by Friday November 16 via thilani (dot) attale (at) ama-assn.org . This is also on the PLA home page cited above.
The Public Agenda for this November PLA meeting is here. There are 7 new codes and one minor text revision on the docket. If I read the calendar correctly (here). this round of applications was due October 9 and posted publicly by AMA on October 16, with a window until October 23 for public comment submissions. The PLA subcommittee voted on November 6, which is not a final AMA vote but rather, sends recommendations forward to THIS public hearing on November 19. You can listen in, just like you can attend and watch a CPT meeting, but often these final public calls are pretty brief ("Questions? Hearing none, please vote.")
These 4Q2018 PLA codes are finaled and public on January 1, but I believe CMS requires a quarter of cycle time before adopting them on April 1.
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I noted in a previous blog that this PLA cycle is sort of like a solar eclipse - it is the shortest possible cycle time between getting a PLA code and getting a market based PAMA rate. Your code will be active in Q2 2019 (for CMS purposes.) Let's say you envision a market price of $1000, but in July 2019, CMS crosswalks your code to $200. That $200 price will hold for CY2020. However, in early 2020, CMS will collect your market price data - let's say it is $1000 per payment for your private payers during Q2-2019. That private payer rate of $1000 will then become your CMS PAMA payment in CY2021, 2022, 2023. You will only be exposed to the CMS low crosswalk price of $200 for one year (CY2020). This is the shortest possible exposure to undervaluation, according to current PLA and PAMA cycles.