Robert Michel
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.
Articles by Robert Michel
Taming the Blood Beast With Better Utilization
CEO SUMMARY: For hospital labs, explosive increases in the cost of blood products is a budget buster. At St. Vincent Indianapolis Hospital, a multi-year blood management program is paying big dividends. Patient safety has improved, even as utilization of blood dropped by 7,000 un…
June 1, 2010 “Intelligence: Late Breaking Lab News”
Kaiser Permanente Northern California says it now has all 21 hospitals and 160 clinics and medical offices up and running with a fully functioning electronic health record (EHR) system. This ends implementation of a decade-long effort that cost $4 billion. Kaiser claims that its Heal…
Optimism & Opportunity at Executive War College
CEO SUMMARY: Instead of our annual review of key speakers as a source of emerging trends and common themes, this year we assess the attitudes, opinions, and activities of the pathologists, laboratory administrators, managers, and industry executives in attendance at the 15th Annu…
Sonic Health Wins Irish Contract for Pap Testing
CEO SUMMARY: Evidently the Irish Health Service is satisfied with its decision to outsource all the nation’s cervical cancer screening tests. In recent weeks, it announced that two international laboratory companies would handle Pap testing for the next two years. Sonic Healthc…
Pathologists Can Still Earn Medicare PQRI Incentives
CEO SUMMARY: During 2010, the Medicare Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) will pay a 2% bonus to pathologists who register and report data on 80% of their cases for the specified CPT codes. However, independent pathology laboratories still cannot participate in the PQR…
French Company Buys Pittsburgh-Based RedPath
CEO SUMMARY: Here’s a deal that is all about proprietary molecular assays and access to new markets. With its purchase of RedPath Integrated Pathology, ExonHit Therapeutics, S.A., of Paris, France, gains a CLIA laboratory and access to the U.S. market, even as the new owner ope…
Letter to Editor on EMR Donations, Deeply-Discounted Client Prices
Dear Editor: Because THE DARK REPORT is willing to tackle tough issues regarding the business end of the pathology profession, I am writing to call attention to a serious situation. What follows is presented as mostly factual and minimally perceptive. While I have no fe…
EMR Donations, Client Bill Issues in Anatomic Path
CEO SUMMARY: In today’s market for anatomic pathology services, local pathology practices are facing tough competition from national pathology companies that are quite aggressive at using EHR donations and discounted client bill arrangements to win new clients. Attorney Jane Pi…
May 10, 2010 “Intelligence: Late Breaking Lab News”
Just four years since its founding in June, 2006, Aurora Diagnostics, Inc., of Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, is preparing to go public. On April 30, the company filed stock registration documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for an IPO (initial pu…
Two Years Later, CMS Still Holds Labs’ Competitive Bid Documents
IF ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS, then the federal government sends a clear message by its repeated refusal to return bidding documents to laboratories involved with the now-defunct Medicare Clinical Laboratory Services Competitive Bidding Demonstration project. That’s because, more than two yea…
CURRENT ISSUE
Volume XXXII, No. 13 – September 15, 2025
The Dark Report examines a new bill that would reform PAMA and avoid reimbursement rate cuts scheduled for January 2026. Clinical laboratory leaders are urged to make their voices heard in Congress. Also, an expert describes how labs can fix pre-analytical errors and avoid disaster.
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