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

July 2011

Tougher Financial Times Ahead for Lab Industry

THE YEARS 2008 THROUGH 2010 WERE TOUGH ECONOMIC TIMES for all healthcare providers, including clinical laboratories and pathology groups. Moreover, although the deepest recession in 30 years was declared over by mid-2009, many hospitals continue to struggle financially and the national unemployment rate still hovers at about 9%, meaning that millions of Americans cannot find …

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Why Insurers Are Buying Office-Based Physicians

WHEN THE NEWS BECAME PUBLIC earlier this month that UnitedHealth Group was quietly purchasing physician groups in selected areas of the country, there was a flurry of news articles recognizing this as a new trend. These news stories came after July 1. That’s the date when Kaiser Health News published an analysis of UnitedHealth’s strategy …

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Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp Report Second Quarter Earnings

JUST ONE DAY APART, the nation’s two largest laboratory testing companies reported second quarter and half-year earnings for 2011. Each financial report opened a window into marketplace developments for the first six months of this year. First to release its earnings report was Quest Diagnostics Incorporated. On July 20, it announced that quarterly net revenue …

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Destructive Tornado Hits Joplin Hospital, Lab Rebuilds Swiftly

CEO Summary: One week after one of the worst storms ever to strike a hospital in the U.S., St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Joplin, Missouri, was back treating patients. Surprisingly, the hospital’s lab was one of the first departments to get up and running again. Within hours of the storm, the lab staff was …

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Doctors Use Mobile Apps To View Lab Results

CEO SUMMARY: By sending lab test results and other data from the hospital’s electronic health record system to physicians’ smartphones, Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck, New Jersey, is empowering physicians to manage patient care more efficiently. Today, few hospitals send information directly from the electronic health record (EHR) system to a smartphone (meaning an …

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July 25, 2011 “Intelligence: Late Breaking Lab News”

In a play to expand its presence in cervical cancer testing, Roche Holdings announced an agreement to acquire mtm laboratories AG, based in Heidelberg, Germany. Roche will pay U.S. $180 million, plus another U.S. $85 million if performance milestones are achieved. mtm laboratories will become a division of Ventana Medical Systems. In its press release, …

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Pathology Across State Lines and National Borders

WE ARE SWIFTLY APPROACHING THE DAY when community hospital-based pathologists will be able to serve hospitals and physicians located across state lines with the same ease that they serve hospitals and office-based physicians in their own cities and regions. In the same vein, at least two major academic pathology groups in the United States have …

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Will Lawsuits Re-shape Current Lab Practices?

CEO SUMMARY: Recent events in California, triggered by a lab whistleblower lawsuit filed in 2005 and unsealed in 2009, provide the latest example of how these lawsuits and related government enforcement actions can cause fundamental changes in the pricing and marketing practices that labs and other providers can use while staying within the laws that …

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Teamsters, UCFW Sue NID, Quest In Racketeering Case

CEO SUMMARY: For the second time in recent years, Quest Diagnostics Incorporated and Nichols Institute Diagnostics (NID) face a lawsuit alleging problems with a number of diagnostic test kits that were manufactured and sold by NID going back to 2000. The plaintiffs are two unions—the Teamsters and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union—who have …

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Crossing State Lines With Digital Pathology

CEO SUMMARY: It is predicted that use of digital pathology will create new care models in the profession of anatomic pathology. An early example of this trend can be found in Bellingham, Washington. Here, the 10 pathologists of Northwest Pathology are using a digital pathology system to provide frozen section and surgical pathology services to …

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