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Exact Sciences' Shares Recover after CMS Agrees to Correct Published Reimbursement Level for Cologuard

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Shares of Exact Sciences rebounded today following a statement from the company that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had made an error in the 2015 clinical lab fee schedule for the firm's Cologuard test.

On Friday, CMS released the lab fee schedule, which establishes reimbursement rates for various diagnostic tests. According to the schedule, CMS set the National Reimbursement Limit code for G0464, which is assigned to the Cologuard colorectal cancer screening test, at $364.61, below the $502 reimbursement level that CMS had said in November that it would pay for the test.

The new rate resulted in a sell-off of Exact Science's stock and a 5 percent decline in its shares on Friday.

Later that day, however, the Madison, Wis.-based firm said that CMS had informed it that the agency will issue a correction to the 2015 lab fee schedule this week, and CMS would reimburse $500.76 for Cologuard, based on the national limit for CPT codes 82274, 81275, and 81315.

In afternoon trading shares of Exact Sciences rose about 6 percent at $27.50 on the Nasdaq and were up as much as 8 percent.

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