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
February 02, 2009 “Intelligence: Late Breaking Lab News”
Last week, THE DARK REPORT was in Birmingham, England, to participate in the sixth annual Frontiers in Laboratory Medicine (FiLM) conference. This event is co-produced by the Association of Clinical Biochemistry (ACB) and THE DARK REPORT. It provides an opportunity to learn…
Labs Need to Respond To Inaccurate Results
CEO SUMMARY: What does a lab do when it discovers that it has reported inaccurate test results? In 2004, a turnaround team arrived at the laboratory of Maryland General Hospital in Baltimore to deal with the consequences of a failed infectious disease testing program. For about t…
Dennis Monahan of ARUP Dies on Christmas Eve
HE HAD A CAREER THAT SPANNED the birth of the esoteric/reference testing industry and its evolution into a major source of advanced diagnostic services to the nation’s hospitals and commercial laboratory companies. Dennis Patrick Monahan was Vice President for National Contracts at ARUP La…
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…
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 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…
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Volume XXXII, No. 12 – August 25, 2025
In an exclusive interview, a laboratory industry M&A specialist discusses what’s driving lab outreach sales to national lab companies. Also, The Dark Report analyzes ways in which pathology and clinical labs can profitably partner with pharmaceutical companies.
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