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State lab cites higher supply, waste and contract costs; newborn screening fee to rise
Summary
Laboratory managers said reagent costs, hazardous-waste disposal, equipment maintenance and personnel expenses are driving a set of fee changes; newborn screening will rise by about $8 with part of the increase passed through to Family Health for follow-up services the division provides.
Laboratory leadership detailed multiple fee changes driven by higher reagent and hazardous-waste costs, rising equipment maintenance contracts, and increased personnel expenses. Staff said some new fees reflect tests requested by the Department of Environmental Quality and changes in testing methodology for infectious-disease assays.
Robert Hall said the newborn-screening fee is proposed to increase by about $8 to help fund assay-related expenses and to pass a portion of funding to Family Health, which performs follow-up services for certain congenital conditions. "Newborn screening doesn't receive general funding. So everything has to be reimbursed by this fee," Hall said. Committee members pressed staff on whether certain removed test methodologies would still be available; staff said older methods were being discontinued because equipment costs made internal testing infeasible and those samples are being sent to external reference labs.
