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
Lab Conserves Blood When Drawing Patients
CEO SUMMARY: New attention on both the risks associated with blood transfusions and the cost of blood products is triggering action by the nation’s hospitals. At the 719-bed Rhode Island Hospital, the laboratory is on the front line of the hospital’s blood management initiative. One c…
ASCP Awarded PEPFAR II Funds for Lab Assistance
CEO SUMMARY: With new Congressional authorization and funding of $48 billion, PEPFAR II—a second five-year initiative to help targeted countries battle HIV, AIDs, tuberculosis, and malaria—is about to get under way. To better support diagnosis and management of HIV/AIDs patie…
January 12, 2009 “Intelligence: Late Breaking Lab News”
Here’s an interesting quirk. It seems none of the major lab professional associations and societies have yet to alert their members to last week’s national news about inaccurate Vitamin D test results at Quest Diagnostics Incorporated. At least, that was true today, based on vis…
Vitamin D Test Issues Trigger Doctor Discussion
CEO SUMMARY: In recent months, Quest Diagnostics Incorporated quietly launched a campaign to notify certain patients and their physicians that they had received “inaccurate results” for Vitamin D tests it had performed. This notice includes an offer to retest the patient at no charge….
Doctor Notices Different Vitamin D Results over Time
CEO SUMMARY: Psychiatrist John J. Cannell, M.D., was in a unique position to see the noticeable upward shift in the Vitamin D results reported on his patients by Quest Diagnostics Incorporated over the past 24 months, along with the recent decline in test result levels in recent weeks. Hi…
Vitamin D Test Expert Discusses Mass Spec
CEO SUMMARY: Those labs performing Vitamin 25(OH) D testing by mass spectrometry face an interesting challenge. For more than two decades, physicians, patients, and a majority of credible clinical studies have accepted RIA and IA Vitamin 25(OH) D results as a familiar standard. That is wh…
Quest Diagnostics Explains Confidence in LC-MS/MS Method
ONE ASPECT IN THE DEBATE about the integrity of Vitamin D tests produced by liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC 0150MS/MS) is the discussion about how this method can produce results that are significantly higher than those produced by immunoassay-based methods. Quest Diagnostics add…
Quest Discusses Use of Mass Spec Methodology
CEO SUMMARY: Having made the decision to perform nearly all Vitamin 25(OH) D testing by liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS), Quest Diagnostics Incorporated found the transition to be challenging. That was particularly true as the volume of Vitamin D specimens tri…
Retest Program Offers Useful Lessons for Labs
CEO SUMMARY: Every day in every laboratory, there is the potential for some aspect of the testing process to go wrong and not be immediately detected. In such circumstances, the lab can then unknowingly report inaccurate test results to physicians and patients. That is why lab managers sh…
December 22, 2008 “Intelligence: Late Breaking Lab News”
Last Thursday, Sunquest Information Systems, Inc. of Tucson, Arizona, announced that it would purchase the “Outreach Advantage Solution” software system developed by Pathology Associates Medical Laborator ies of Spokane, Washington. PAML has spent most of this de…
CURRENT ISSUE
Volume XXXII, No. 10 – July 14, 2025
This issue is strong on different flavors of enforcement that clinical laboratories, whether they want to or not, will need to contend with. Lab stakeholders provide insights that medical labs need to brace for more action to counter pending test reimbursement rate cuts under PAMA. Also, this issue provides the legal and regulatory landscape for clinical labs’ use of AI and how it evolves with the technology. AI is creating legal uncertainty for clinical labs, especially around data privacy and FDA oversight of AI tools in diagnostics.
See the full table of contentsHow Much Laboratory Business Intelligence Have You Missed?
Lab leaders rely on THE DARK REPORT for actionable intelligence on important developments in the business of laboratory testing. Maximize the money you make-and the money you keep! Best of all, it is released every three weeks!
Sign up for TDR Insider
Join the Dark Intelligence Group FREE and get TDR Insider FREE!
Never miss a single update on the issues that matter to you and your business.