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Nevada bill would raise newborn screening fee to maintain expanded testing panel
Summary
Senate Bill 348 would increase Nevada’s newborn-screening fee from $81 to $150 to sustain an expanded panel of conditions and to cover inflation and equipment, reagents and follow-up costs. Supporters said expanded screening detects treatable conditions early; hospital groups opposed making hospitals bear most of the increase.
Senate Bill 348 was presented May 5 to the Assembly Committee on Health and Human Services to increase the fee the Nevada State Public Health Laboratory charges for newborn screening from $81 to $150.
Senator Pizzina, sponsor of the bill, said the measure — as amended — sets a fixed fee of $150 for newborn screening that covers currently screened heritable conditions and four additional conditions the state needs to reach the federally recommended panel. The sponsor and witnesses described the increase as necessary to sustain testing operations after federal American Rescue Plan (ARPA) funds that briefly expanded testing expire.
Paul Hauptmann, dean at the University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine, testified the Nevada State Public Health Laboratory screened for 29 heritable conditions at a fee of $81 in 2014, and that the lab has added three conditions since 2023 using federal HRSA and ARPA funds. He said the lab plans to add four more conditions to reach the standard national panel of 36 and that inflation, labor costs and instrumentation upgrades justified the $69 increase: about $41 for inflation over 11 years and $28 tied to added conditions. "This is the classic pay now or pay me later situation," Hauptmann said, adding that delayed diagnosis can produce much higher downstream costs.
Annette Logan Parker, founder of Cure for the Kids Foundation and chair of Nevada’s Rare Disease Advisory Council, told the committee that newborn screening “is one of the most successful public health initiatives” and that Nevada’s fee would remain among the lowest in the country even after the increase.
Staff and witnesses explained who currently pays: the fee has been billed as part of the hospital’s global labor-and-delivery payment rather than charged directly to families. Stacy Weeks, speaking for Medicaid interests at the hearing, said the Medicaid program covers nearly half of births in the state and the amendment seeks to provide an enhanced Medicaid reimbursement rate ("at least $150") for those examinations if sufficient state funds are available at the end of the fiscal year. Weeks said a fiscal analysis estimated the increased cost at under $200,000 annually, and the amendment would trigger a rate decision after the fiscal-year close.
Hospital groups testified in opposition to the bill’s requirement that hospitals absorb an 85% increase in lab fees. Patrick Kelly of the Nevada Hospital Association said the association supports newborn screening but opposed forcing hospitals to pay the bulk of the higher fee; Blaine Osborne of Nevada Royal Hospital Partners said the amendment was an improvement but urged a funding trigger tied to general fund availability because Medicaid and insurer reimbursements and federal funding remain uncertain.
Parent testimony illustrated clinical stakes. Summer Webb, a mother of a child with infantile-onset Pompe disease, described a delayed diagnosis in a state that did not screen for Pompe: her son later required months on life support and more than $2 million in first-year care costs. Webb said early detection through newborn screening “could have prevented” the clinical and financial trauma her family experienced.
Witnesses at the hearing requested the state adopt the full federally recommended screening panel (36 conditions) and preserve ARPA-funded expansions once those federal funds expire in 2026. The committee closed the SB 348 hearing on May 5; no committee vote is recorded in the transcript.
