On September 19, 2012, the House approved H.R. 6118, the TEST Act, which would provide CMS with more flexibility in enforcing prohibitions against improper referrals of proficiency testing under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA). Under current law, CMS must revoke the CLIA certificate of any laboratory that intentionally refers its proficiency testing samples to another laboratory for testing for a period of one year. Moreover, a person who has owned or operated a laboratory which has had its CLIA certification revoked may not own or operate a laboratory for two years. H.R. 6118 would give the Secretary discretion to determine whether the one-year ban on laboratories should be applied and the flexibility to levy immediate sanctions instead of the two-year prohibition against ownership or operation of the lab. A Senate companion bill also was approved by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee on September 19.