Until Robert L. Michel came along and founded The Dark Intelligence Group (DIG) two decades ago, the clinical laboratory industry and the anatomic pathology profession lacked a trustworthy source for information about the management and operations of medical laboratories. From its inception in 1995, The Dark Report quickly became the “go to” source of industry intelligence, innovations in lab management, and strategic market analysis.
This excellence in reporting has earned recognition from his peers. For example, twice Michel and The Dark Report have won national awards for best investigative reporting by the Specialty Information Publishers Association. In 2005, the award was for Michel’s coverage about how the anatomic pathology condominium laboratories (pod labs) operated by urologists and gastroenterologists came to be, who operated them, and how these owners marketed the AP condo labs to other physician groups. In 2009, Michel’s award for best investigative reporting resulted from his published interviews with Quest Diagnostics Incorporated when the company admitted that, for a period of 18 months, it had been reported inaccurate Vitamin 25(OH) D results because of problems with its laboratory-developed test methodology. The Dark Report’s story was picked up by The New York Times and was in the national news cycle for several days.
In his role as Editor-in-Chief, Michel brought unique capabilities to DIG and The Dark Report. His management training and diverse business experience—along with his skills as a concise writer and analyst—proved to be a winning combination for readers of The Dark Report. For that reason, Michel’s story has many intriguing elements.
Immediately prior to founding DIG, he had served in several executive positions for Nichols Institute based in Portland, Oregon, and San Juan Capistrano, California. This was during the time that Nichols Institute was an independent public lab company with annual revenues of about $280 million (prior to its acquisition by MetPath, Inc., now Quest Diagnostics Incorporated). He traveled extensively to many of the clinical lab business units owned by Nichols Institute in different regions of the United States and played a role in formulating effective market strategies in response to the emergence of closed-panel HMOs, capitated pricing, and full-risk managed care contracts, among other successful management initiatives.
Prior to his service at Nichols Institute, Michel served at three different Fortune 100 companies. These were Procter & Gamble, Centex Corporation, and Financial Corp. of America. Each was an opportunity to master new management techniques and apply them in different industries. Between these positions, he gained experience as an entrepreneur, having founded a real estate development firm and a general contracting company in the Southeastern United States.
Robert Michel earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he played rugby, a sport he participated in for another 22 years. He is a native of California and grew up in Santa Ana.
From the Volume XXV No. 8 – May 29, 2018 issue
Ireland is dealing with a cervical cancer screening scandal that reaches back to laboratories in the United States. In recent months, the Irish public has learned that more than 200 women wrongly got negative Pap test results over a multi-year period. Many of these women did not learn of the erroneous test results for years after
From the Volume XXV No. 7 – May 7, 2018 issue
In Sebastopol, Calif., the financially-troubled Sonoma West Medical Center (SWMC) dropped a controversial drugs-of-abuse testing program. The following month, without the revenue from the drug testing program, 37-bed SWMC lost $1.4 million. In 2017, the hospital entered into a pass-through billing arrangement with a Florida attorney, Aaron Durall and his lab company, Reliance Laboratory Testing.
From the Volume XXV No. 6 – April 16, 2018 issue
Add Estonia to the growing list of nations that will now provide genetic information to its citizens. On March 20, the government rolled out an initiative that, in its first phase, will generate genetic information for 100,000 of its 1.3 million residents. This data will address an individual’s genetic risk for specific diseases. The University of
From the Volume XXV No. 6 – April 16, 2018 issue
CEO SUMMARY: Discovery of multiple diagnostic errors occurring in an anatomic pathology department triggered a complaint investigation and a 54-page report from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The report shows that Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center is reviewing more than 9,000 pathology cases to identify incorrect cancer diagnoses. Last month, the medical
From the Volume XXV No. 5 – March 26, 2018 issue
On March 6, one of the lab industry’s long-serving executives and consultants, Jack Mattice, PhD, of Vancouver, Wash., died from flu complications. He was 77 years old. Mattice earned a PhD in medical microbiology from University of Oregon. Within a few years, he was handling market development for United Medical Laboratories (UML), of Portland, Ore. UML reached
From the Volume XXV No. 4 – March 5, 2018 issue
“More people took genetic ancestry tests last year than in all previous years combined,” declared Senior Editor Antonio Regalado in a story published on Feb. 18 by MIT Technology Review. He wrote that, just in 2017, the number of people who had their DNA analyzed with direct-to-consumer genetic genealogy tests more than doubled. According to
From the Volume XXV No. 4 – March 5, 2018 issue
DUBAI TO TEST DNA OF ITS 3 MILLION CITIZENS
RECENTLY, GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS in Dubai announced a plan to conduct genetic testing on all three million residents. Experts say this is an unprecedented decision by any national government.
This human genome project will be part of the Dubai 10X initiative. “The authority is looking to target all residents of
From the Volume XXV No. 4 – March 5, 2018 issue
CEO SUMMARY: Pass-through billing arrangements, particularly those involving clinical laboratory tests, have long been recognized by healthcare attorneys as having great potential to violate certain federal and state laws. Despite this fact, board members of a financially-struggling community hospital went forward with a pass-through billing agreement that news accounts says committed the hospital to pay
From the Volume XXV No. 3 – February 12, 2018 issue
Because of the explosion in different payment systems, hospitals, physicians, and providers such as clinical laboratories are facing a new challenge: how to match a payment to a specific patient’s service. Modern Healthcare writer Tara Bannow reports that, “back when most patients paid with cash or checks, most health systems relied solely on banks to handle
From the Volume XXV No. 3 – February 12, 2018 issue
DEEP PRICE CUTS to the Medicare Part B Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule was the big story of 2017. The big story of 2018 may be the widespread financial disruption to the clinical lab industry as labs see dramatic declines in their revenue from these Medicare fee cuts.
One early opportunity for lab administrators and pathologists to
