Mandated Medicare Laboratory Accreditation 

While Medicare requires mandatory accreditation for advanced imaging services like MRI, CT, and nuclear medicine, echocardiography is excluded from these quality standards. This allows any Medicare provider to perform and bill for echocardiograms without specialized training or standardized equipment requirements. The result is poor image quality, incorrect diagnoses, unnecessary repeat testing, and inappropriate Medicare spending. Utilization of limited echocardiography has nearly tripled since 2013, driven in part by non-cardiovascular specialists using point-of-care devices without proper expertise. 

ASE urges Congress to mandate accreditation for Medicare echocardiography services, bringing quality standards in line with other advanced imaging modalities. Following MedPAC's 2005 recommendation, mandatory accreditation would ensure standardized equipment, qualified technicians, and proper procedures across all facilities. This would improve patient outcomes through guaranteed quality standards while reducing Medicare costs by eliminating unnecessary testing and improving diagnostic accuracy.