Since 1995, Reliable Business Intelligence for Clinical Laboratories, Pathology Groups and Laboratory Diagnostics

August 2002

Read “Waiver of Charges” for What It Is: FREE!

Commentary and Opinion by R. Lewis Dark / R. Lewis Dark

TODAY I AM AN OLD CURMUDGEON WHO IS IN HIGH DUDGEON. What’s got my dander up is the disturbing revelation in this issue of THE DARK REPORT about the willingness by some of our industry’s biggest companies to use “free testing” as a way to protect and build market share. (See pages 2-8.) This is […]

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Two Blood Brothers Use “Free Testing” Strategy

The Dark Report / Robert Michel

CEO SUMMARY: It’s a business strategy that Quest Diagnostics Incorporated and Laboratory Corporation of America use in selected areas where they have lost exclusive managed care contracts to regional lab competitors. In order to retain access to a physician’s fee-for-service testing business, each lab company is willing to waive HMO testing fees in specific situations

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Will “Free Testing” Ploy Financially Affect Labs?

The Dark Report / Robert Michel

CEO SUMMARY: It’s a marketing scheme which public lab companies have quietly used for years. Now there is evidence that the use of “Waiver of Charges to Managed Care Patients” (free testing) seems to be on the increase, raising new questions about how and why competitive practices are changing. Will the two blood brothers use

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Newly-Issued HIPAA Regs Generate Lots of Controversy

The Dark Report / Robert Michel

HIPAA IS A SUBJECT that is little understood and generates lots of concern among clinical laboratories and every type of healthcare provider that generates clinical data. On August 14, final privacy regulations were published in the Federal Register. The implementation deadline for most healthcare entities is April 14, 2003, just a short eight months away.

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Lab Competitors Pool Lab Data For Clinicians In British Columbia

The Dark Report / Robert Michel

CEO SUMMARY: In British Columbia, two commercial laboratory competitors have found common ground. BC Biomedical Laboratories and MDS Metro Laboratories are using LOINC to link their laboratory test databases. Physicians use a single system to access their patient’s test results, regardless of which lab performed the test. Coming enhancements to the system include wireless access

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Quest Diagnostics, CVS Pharmacies, Premier, Novation, Luminex, Careside.

The Dark Report / Robert Michel

QUEST DOES DEAL WITH CVS DRUGSTORES FOR LAB TESTING PATHOLOGISTS CONCERNED about pharmacists moving into the lab testing arena should closely watch the newly-announced relationship between Quest Diagnostics Incorporated and CVS Corporation. Starting this month, CVS pharmacies in Columbus, Ohio and Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida now sell lab tests. Participating pharmacies have a card display for

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“August 26, 2002 Intelligence: Late Breaking Lab News”

Late Breaking Lab News / Robert Michel

Here’s a fact of significance. Economy.com reports that, in 2001, revenues from fixed-line telephone service declined for the first time in decades. Analysts say that consumers and businesses are shifting spending to wireless telephones. It is confirmation that our economy continues to move toward a wireless, Internet-based information society. Labs and pathology groups should be

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Attack on Clinical Path Professional Payments

Commentary and Opinion by R. Lewis Dark / R. Lewis Dark

MANY PATHOLOGISTS WITH AN ECONOMIC INTEREST in clinical pathology professional component reimbursement have yet to fully appreciate the impact of an unfavorable decision rendered by a Florida appeals court recently. As you will read on page 5, an insurance company in Florida was actively sending letters to its patients and instructing them not to pay

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Lab Testing to Boom During This Decade

In Vitro Diagnostics / Robert Michel

CEO SUMMARY: Several recent acquisitions of lab test technology by billion-dollar diagnostics manufacturers reinforce a new reality in the healthcare marketplace: developing new diagnostic tests is faster, cheaper, and more profitable than developing new pharmaceutical products. This simple economic fact is driving an amazing expansion in the number of companies developing new lab test technology.

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Florida Appeals Court Strikes Blow To Clinical Path Payment

Pathology Trends / Robert Michel

LEGAL ARGUMENTS SUPPORTING payment for clinical pathology professional services were dealt a blow when Florida’s Fifth District Court of Appeal issued an unfavorable ruling on July 12 in Daytona Beach, Florida. “The import of the court’s ruling seems to be that a pathologist in Florida cannot bill a patient for clinical pathology professional services unless

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