Joseph Burns
Joseph Burns is the senior editor of The Dark Report. An independent journalist in Falmouth, Mass., Burns has covered health care since 1991 and clinical laboratories since 2004. He writes for a variety of publications, including Managed Care magazine (where he is a contributing editor), Hospitals & Health Networks, and Healthcare Finance News. In addition, he is the insurance topic leader for the Association of Health Care Journalists and has worked as a writer and editor for The Commonwealth Fund, the Health Care Incentives Improvement Institute, the National Business Coalition on Health, the National Committee for Quality Assurance, and the National Quality Forum. Burns has edited books on health care business strategies for Faulkner & Gray and Panel Publishers and was editor-in-chief of Business & Health magazine, formerly published by Medical Economics Co., and later was a contributing editor and columnist for Managed Healthcare Executive magazine. He began his career as a journalist in Connecticut, working as a newspaper reporter for The Wallingford Post and the Meriden Record-Journal and as a copy editor, reporter, and regional news editor for The Hartford Courant, the nation’s oldest newspaper. While working for The Courant, he taught news writing at the University of Connecticut.
Articles by Joseph Burns
NorDx Lab Started to Prepare for COVID-19 Testing in 2019
CEO SUMMARY: In a remarkable example of prescience, informed by decades-long experience in clinical lab testing and past epidemics, the president of NorDx Laboratories in Maine saw the December news accounts of a widespread outbreak of a new respiratory disease in China. He warned h…
Questions Arise as FDA Assesses Serology Tests
CEO SUMMARY: On June 4, the FDA released results of an evaluation of some of the 20 tests offered for sale in this country to identify antibodies for SARS-CoV-2. A quality control expert in clinical labs called the antibody test analysis deeply flawed in part because of the study’s …
Health Insurers Push Back On COVID-19 Test Claims
CEO SUMMARY: Under new federal laws, health insurers are required to pay for testing for the novel coronavirus without cost-sharing, prior authorization, or medical management limits, but insurers are questioning these COVID-19 lab test bills and denying many of the claims, a healthca…
Lab Buys More Instruments as Way to Add Test Volume
CEO SUMMARY: Severe shortages of supplies for COVID-19 lab testing caused one lab director in the Midwest to buy additional instruments while also validating five different COVID-19 tests to run on analyzers the lab used before the pandemic hit. While this strategy allowed the lab to …
COVID-19 Serology Test Claims 98.8% Accuracy
CEO SUMMARY: When it announced its new antibody test for the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 on May 3, Roche Holdings explained that its sensitivity level after 14 days was 100%, which is an important point to understand about the test. When assessing Roche’s claims, two expert…
Coronavirus Tests Boost Immunology Lab’s Volume
CEO SUMMARY: Physicians treating patients with compromised immune systems who contract the new coronavirus need immunology tests to guide risk-assessment decisions for these patients. At a Virginia lab that specializes in such testing, specimen volume has tripled since the SAR…
In Michigan, Short Supplies Constrain COVID Test Capacity
CEO SUMMARY: Because of a severe shortage of supplies, members of Michigan’s two hospital laboratory networks have been stymied in their ability to respond to the pandemic and operate their SARS-CoV-2 analyzers at full capacity. The lack of primers, reagents, specimen-collec…
Lab Directors Develop Plans for Return of Routine Hospital Care
CLINICAL LABORATORY DIRECTORS IN MICHIGAN are developing plans to test patients who will return when hospitals reopen for routine care. Included in those plans are strategies to do testing for the novel coronavirus on patients who will return for everyday care and elective procedures, said Bart…
March, April Patient Visits Drop at Virginia Physician Group and Lab
DURING THE CARONAVIRUS PANDEMIC, gastroenterology and other physician groups with in-house medical laboratories—like most medical practices and clinical laboratories in the United States—have seen a sharp drop in patient visits and specimen volume. That drop occurred at the same time ga…
California Research Team Analyzes Performance of 12 Serological Tests
This is an excerpt of a 2.241-word article in the May 11, 2020 issue of THE DARK REPORT (TDR). The full article is available to members of The Dark Intelligence Group. CEO SUMMARY: Researchers with the COVID-19 Testing Project used a multidisciplinary effort to analyze and compa…
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