March 12, 2018
Senator Ron Johnson
328 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
Dear Senator Johnson:
As president of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), I am contacting you about the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act of 1988. This law is the nation’s most sweeping regulation of physician’s laboratories. It remains unclear as to why this law was ever needed. The Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act has caused the loss of private, physician based laboratory testing by thousands of doctors across the United States. Access to timely, high quality care for millions of Americans has been compromised by decreased access to clinical laboratories in doctor’s offices. This law makes it illegal for physicians to look through a microscope in their own office! Doctors and hospitals must struggle with mountains of government generated paperwork to comply with the thousands of pages of rules, regulations, and guidelines required by this law–which adds billions of dollars to the costs of performing clinical laboratory tests. Worse yet, the development of new and better laboratory tests for physician offices have been stifled by the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act of 1988.
As you know, President Trump would like to repeal bad laws and unnecessary government programs. Here is an opportunity to close down an agency that is a waste of taxpayer dollars!
Therefore, AAPS is requesting that Congress repeal the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me. My office address is 10 East Irving Avenue, Oshkosh, WI 54901. My cell is 920- 385- 8686. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Albert L. Fisher, M.D.
President, Association of American Physicians and Surgeons
