Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act

The New Mexico Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act (CLIA) program ensures that all laboratory facilities (including physician office laboratories) meet the established health and safety standards for specimen testing.

The mission of the program is to ensure that the highest quality of laboratory testing is performed in New Mexico through education and enforcement of federal regulations. The purpose of CLIA is to set minimum standards for all laboratories to follow and to determine if laboratories are achieving those standards.

Special Announcement:

In order to prepare for this anticipated influx of applications,

"In an effort to provide support to workplaces who may be doing COVID-19 testing, CMS has prepared materials to outline the simple steps necessary to do this. Generally, a CLIA certificate of waiver is necessary for a workplace to do testing. For information regarding CLIA requirements and the application process for workplace COVID-19 testing, please see the Quick Start Guide for COVID-19 Testing in the Workplace and the Workplace COVID-19 Testing Fact Sheet.

PLEASE NOTE: CMS is temporarily exercising enforcement discretion and allowing employers to start waived SARS-CoV-2 Point of Care testing after a facility has submitted a CMS-116 application.

Learn More

Please refer to the following documents below for more information on CLIA.

• General Information — Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act Historical Information
• Special Alerts — Live Blood Cell Analysis Under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act
• Center's for Medicare and Medicaid Services — Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments