Advocacy - Lab Advocate
On March 10, Congress passed the American Rescue Plan Act, and President Biden signed the bill into law shortly thereafter. The bill includes $48.3 billion in funding for number of measures for which AACC and the healthcare community have vigorously advocated, and will provide resources to help bolster testing, hire staff for contact tracing, and provide personal protective equipment (PPE) for frontline healthcare workers. The bill also provides $1.733 billion for enhanced genomic sequencing to identify and mitigate the spread of new variants.
Since February 2020, AACC has engaged Congress and the federal government on several issues pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic. The association has developed or joined nearly 30 letters to Congress, and worked with federal agencies, the White House, and the Biden transition team to ensure that policymakers understand and address the needs of laboratories as they have worked to meet the demand for testing. AACC has repeatedly provided input on policy and legislation, and offered recommendations for expanding testing capacity, reducing the time to obtain results, and improving the accuracy of COVID-19 tests.
Throughout the pandemic, AACC has worked hard educate policymakers about the problems laboratories have encountered, particularly the shortage of test kits, reagents, and personal protective equipment. Since May 2020, the association has conducted surveys of laboratories performing COVID-19 testing, and used the results to urge the federal government to ensure timely manufacturing and distribution of supplies such as swabs, reagents, and PPE to labs. The association also encouraged federal officials the improve coordination across all levels of government to develop a unified testing strategy with common terminology and understanding of challenges faced by healthcare providers. These efforts resulted in conference calls with Senator Toomey’s office as well as with Admiral Brett Giroir, the ‘Testing Czar’ for the previous administration.
The association has frequently joined with its allies to urge Congress to provide additional funding to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to rebuild the public health workforce and to augment the agency’s ability to implement response strategies and reporting measures; expanding serological testing by certifying test quality and adequately reimbursing laboratories for performing them; and provide financial aid to healthcare providers negatively impacted the pandemic.
The resources provided by APRA will go a long way to address the issues that labs and healthcare providers have experienced throughout the pandemic and will be crucial to finally curbing the spread of COVID-19 and achieving the goal of returning to normal. AACC will continue to work with its allies to ensure that laboratories have the resources to safeguard their staff and provide vital testing for their patient populations.