Laboratory advocacy is the work of making the profession visible to policymakers, students, and the public so that laboratory careers are recruited for, funded, and respected. Recent efforts show what it looks like in practice: in November 2024, ADLM endorsed the Medical Laboratory Personnel Shortage Relief Act of 2024, which would add laboratory professionals to the National Health Service Corps, create loan repayment incentives, and fund laboratory education. The future of laboratory career advocacy will depend on combining policy work with early education, data, and the voices of laboratory professionals themselves.
Laboratory results shape a large share of clinical decisions, yet the people who produce them are rarely seen. That invisibility has consequences, because policymakers fund what they know about, students choose careers they have heard of, and the public values what it can picture. This article explains what laboratory advocacy involves, what recent policy efforts have asked for, where the field is heading, and how individual professionals can take part.
What Laboratory Advocacy Means
Laboratory advocacy covers several kinds of work that reinforce each other. Policy advocacy engages legislators and agencies on issues such as payment, regulation, and workforce programs. Professional advocacy represents laboratory scientists and technologists in their workplaces and societies, including pay, scope, and recognition. Public advocacy raises awareness of what laboratories do, which creates awareness of healthcare’s hidden profession and is described as a core need for the field.
All three share a purpose: strengthening the workforce that patients rely on. As the economic impact of laboratory workforce shortages explains, shortages have costs that extend beyond the laboratory, which is why advocacy is a patient issue as well as a professional one.
What Recent Advocacy Has Asked For
Specific requests give the work shape. In a 2023 letter to Congress ahead of Senate health committee legislation, the American Society for Clinical Pathology urged lawmakers to include the laboratory workforce in any bill addressing healthcare workforce shortages. It made two asks: loan repayment options for laboratory personnel, because student debt contributes to workforce problems, and equal access to federal workforce development programs, such as scholarships and fellowships, that other healthcare professions already use. ASCP also pointed to educational costs, salary, workload, stress, and burnout as causes of shortages.
ADLM has pursued similar goals. Its summary of 2024 and 2025 activity describes endorsement in November 2024 of the Medical Laboratory Personnel Shortage Relief Act of 2024, sponsored by Representative Deborah Ross of North Carolina. The bill would add laboratory professionals to the National Health Service Corps, prioritizing placement in the areas with the greatest staffing gaps, provide loan repayment incentives, and fund educational programs that emphasize culturally competent care and interprofessional collaboration.
Advocacy also covers the economics and regulation of testing. According to the same ADLM summary, the organization objected in October 2024 to planned Medicare cuts of up to 15 percent on about 800 laboratory test rates under the Protecting Access to Medicare Act, citing a flawed data collection method, and supported the Saving Access to Laboratory Services Act, which would reform the process using representative sampling and limit annual cuts.
Congress delayed the cuts by one year in late 2024, the sixth consecutive annual postponement, and moved the data reporting deadline to January 2026. On laboratory-developed tests, the FDA finalized a rule in May 2024 asserting oversight; ADLM argued that CLIA should remain the primary framework, and on March 31, 2025, a federal district court in Texas vacated the rule in ACLA v. FDA. ADLM had joined an amicus brief supporting the case.
I could not confirm how the payment-cut and workforce bills have progressed since those dates, so readers should check current status before citing them. They are useful here as illustrations of the range of issues that advocacy addresses.
Why Workforce Advocacy Is the Priority
Workforce programs sit at the center of laboratory advocacy because every other goal depends on having enough trained people. The proposals above – loan repayment, access to scholarships and fellowships, and placement in underserved areas – address cost and geography, two barriers that keep otherwise interested people out of the profession.
Education is the other half. Students need to know the profession exists, which is why early outreach, such as introducing laboratory science to middle school students and why every school should teach laboratory medicine, belongs within advocacy and not separate from it. Programs that connect classroom learning to employment, as described in bridging the gap between education and employment in laboratory science, turn awareness into careers.
Where Laboratory Advocacy Is Heading
Several trends are likely to shape the next phase of the work.
Technology is changing the questions advocates must answer. As automation and artificial intelligence spread, the profession needs a clear account of the human expertise that remains essential, a topic explored in ” Will automation replace laboratory professionals and artificial intelligence and the future of laboratory diagnostics. Advocacy that frames technology as a tool for professionals, and not a replacement, can influence both policy and public perception.
Data will matter more. Notably, both the ASCP letter and the ADLM endorsement article describe shortages in general terms without citing statistics, which shows how much advocacy can gain from reliable workforce data on vacancies, debt, burnout, and pipeline size. Gender-disaggregated and regional data, as well as data from low- and middle-income countries, would also help identify where interventions are most needed.
Equity will move closer to the core of the agenda. A workforce that reflects the communities it serves is better placed to serve them, as discussed in building a diverse laboratory workforce for the future. The agenda also extends beyond any one country, since laboratory capacity is a global concern, a point developed in building sustainable laboratories in developing countries.
Finally, advocacy is likely to become more collaborative. Societies, educators, employers, and community groups each hold a piece of the solution, and the cooperation described in how community partnerships strengthen healthcare workforce development is a model for coordinated action.
How Individual Professionals Can Take Part
Advocacy is not limited to lobbyists and society leaders. Individual laboratory professionals are often the most persuasive voices because they can describe the work directly. A few practical steps are within reach.
Professionals can join their national or regional society and respond to calls to contact legislators, which societies such as ADLM and ASCP publicize. They can invite students, teachers, or local officials to visit the laboratory so the profession becomes concrete. They can mentor students and new graduates, which both supports retention and expands the pipeline. They can also share clear, jargon-free explanations of their work online and in their communities, and take part in observances such as National Laboratory Professionals Week to raise visibility.
For those who are not laboratory professionals, advocacy can mean asking schools about laboratory science education, supporting funding for workforce programs, and recognizing the people behind test results.
Conclusion
Laboratory career advocacy is, at heart, a response to a visibility problem. When the public and policymakers understand what laboratory professionals do, they are more likely to fund training, support fair payment, and encourage students to enter the field. Recent efforts on loan repayment, workforce programs, payment policy, and regulation show that the profession has clear, concrete asks.
The next step is to strengthen the evidence behind those asks and widen the circle of people making them. By pairing policy work with education, data, and personal storytelling, the laboratory community can build a workforce that is ready for the demands ahead.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is laboratory advocacy?
Laboratory advocacy is the effort to raise the visibility of laboratory medicine and support the people who practice it. It includes policy work with legislators and agencies, professional advocacy within workplaces and societies, and public education about what laboratories do.
Why do laboratory professionals need advocates?
Laboratory work is largely invisible to patients and policymakers, which can leave it underfunded and under-recruited. Advocacy helps ensure that issues such as workforce shortages, education costs, and test payment are understood by the people who make decisions about them.
What policies have laboratory organizations asked for?
Recent examples include loan repayment options and equal access to federal workforce programs, requested by ASCP in 2023, and ADLM’s November 2024 endorsement of the Medical Laboratory Personnel Shortage Relief Act of 2024. ADLM has also advocated on Medicare payment cuts and the regulation of laboratory-developed tests.
How can an individual laboratory professional get involved in advocacy?
They can join a professional society, respond to calls to contact legislators, host students or officials in the laboratory, mentor early-career colleagues, and explain their work to their community. Small, consistent actions add to the profession’s visibility.
Does advocacy matter for students considering laboratory careers?
Yes. Advocacy for loan repayment, scholarships, and early science education can lower the barriers students face, and public awareness helps them learn that the career exists in the first place.
Bio-Reach is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing Laboratory Medicine through advocacy, education, and global collaboration. To learn more or get involved, visit bio-reach.org.
