As our profession and the demand for genetic counselor services grows, the [weak] link connecting the two is reimbursement for our services. As a result, the 2024 NSGC Board of Directors felt it was important that a major focus of the 2025-2027 Strategic Plan be an increase in recognition and reimbursement of genetic counseling provided by genetic counselors. The Board designed a four-prong approach to improve recognition and reimbursement by Medicare, Medicaid, commercial payers, and education about billing and reimbursement for our members.

 

For the last eighteen years, NSGC had a Director of Government Relations who oversaw all advocacy, payer, and government relations initiatives including payer outreach, state licensure efforts and the Access to Genetic Counselor Services Act. While our profession made many advancements under this model, we outgrew the model as the needs of our profession grew. This year the NSGC Board of Directors decided to transition our advocacy, payer, and government relations staff support from a single director of government relations to a more robust infrastructure to meet the needs of our growing organization and membership. Transition to the new infrastructure began in July when we issued a Request for Proposals to identify a refreshed strategy and new lobbying firm to lead the passage of the Access to Genetic Counselor Services Act. After selecting Faegre Drinker as our new lobbying firm, the Board of Directors decided to continue to build out the infrastructure to support all of the advocacy, payer, and government relations needs of our organization and our new four-prong approach to improve recognition and reimbursement. We are very excited about our new structure and are currently working on identifying the firms and persons who will be filling the various roles, Figure 1. With our new Advocacy, Payer & Government Relations infrastructure, there will no longer be a single dedicated staff member for all activities.

 

 

 

The Board will drive the strategic plan and initiatives, and work with these external partners who have expertise and contacts in their respective areas of state licensure, payer relations, NSGC member education, and regulatory support. Our volunteers will continue to play important complementary roles in providing genetic counselor expertise, however we recognize that no single individual and our volunteers alone can meet the profession’s growing needs. As a result, we are in the process of assembling a multidisciplinary team with expertise and contacts in these specific areas to help us achieve the goals of the 2025-2027 strategic plan. In the meantime, NSGC continues outreach to payers regarding genetic counseling and our new CPT code 96041.

 

Our goal is to identify the external partners to complete the above figure by the end of 2024. Once we have the partners identified we will update our members. We will then onboard the new team members and hit the ground running in 2025. I am so excited about the future of our profession and what we will achieve TOGETHER to improve recognition and reimbursement of genetic counselor services to improve patient access to our services. I firmly believe that a more robust infrastructure will help us achieve the goals in our new strategic plan and establish a revenue stream for genetic counselors that will make our profession sustainable and able to continue to grow to meet the needs of all individuals who seek our services.

 

Action Alert:

As we prepare for our new licensure firm, we would like to compile a contact list of individuals who led the licensure effort in their state that we can provide our new firm as a resource. If you led the licensure effort in your state can you submit your contact information to our NSGC State Licensure Leads contact form by Monday, December 16, 2024? Thank you!

 

---