AN ACT RELATIVE TO CLINICAL LABORATORIES.
Whereas, The deferred operation of this act would tend to defeat its purpose, which is to clarify and amend certain authorization, claims and billing procedures concerning clinical laboratories, therefore it is hereby declared to be an emergency law, necessary for the immediate preservation of the public convenience.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:
SECTION 1. Section 8 of chapter 111D of the General Laws, as appearing in the 2004 Official Edition, is hereby amended by inserting after the word ‘osteopath’, in lines 22 and 32, the following words:- or, for the sole purpose of requesting urine drug screening, department of public health-licensed substance abuse programs, state agencies or those vendors that contract with state agencies and are designated by the contracting agency to request such screenings.
SECTION 2. Notwithstanding the provisions of any general or special law to the contrary, the executive office of health and human services shall promulgate regulations for the MassHealth program that are designed to: (a) streamline and simplify signature authorization procedures for clinical laboratory services and, specifically, to exclude as a condition of payment for any laboratory test order form a handwritten signature; (b) clarify the billing procedures for specimen referral where the referring laboratories and testing laboratories are subsidiary related; and (c) require the referring laboratory to disclose on its claim forms the MassHealth provider number for the testing laboratory and the tests performed by the testing laboratory.
Approved July 19, 2006.