The U.S. government will nearly double the amount it pays hospitals and medical centers to process Abbott's COVID-19 diagnostic test, CMS said April 15.
The payment increase is an incentive to get facilities to hire more technicians and expand testing.
Deborah Birx, MD, a top State Department health official and member of the coronavirus task force, said last week machines that can process up to 1 million tests per week were running at less than 10 percent of their capacity because not enough technicians have been hired to run them, according to Bloomberg.
CMS will now pay hospitals and medical facilities $100 per test, up from $51.
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