Since 1995, Reliable Business Intelligence for Clinical Laboratories, Pathology Groups and Laboratory Diagnostics

Commentary and Opinion by R. Lewis Dark

LabCorp’s Plans for Docs, Pathologists and Labs

Commentary and Opinion by R. Lewis Dark / R. Lewis Dark

WHAT’S IN THE FUTURE FOR PHYSICIANS, PATHOLOGISTS, AND CLINICAL LABORATORIES if Laboratory Corporation of America’s strategy for managing lab test utilization is deployed across the country per the company’s plan?

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Labs Have High Interest in Theranos and BeaconLBS

Commentary and Opinion by R. Lewis Dark / R. Lewis Dark

WHAT ARE PATHOLOGISTS AND LAB EXECUTIVES TALKING ABOUT when they gather at lab industry conferences? If the hallway chats between sessions and dinner conversations that occurred last week at the 20th annual Executive War College are representative, then the clinical lab profession is closely tracking the UnitedHealthcare and BeaconLBS story on the East Coast (in Florida) and the Theranos story on the West Coast (California and Arizona).

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Are Labs Facing a Collapse in Test Prices?

Commentary and Opinion by R. Lewis Dark / R. Lewis Dark

IS IT REASONABLE, AT THIS TIME, TO ASK IF THE LAB INDUSTRY IS FACING a potential collapse in lab testing pricing? Were I to have asked that question several years ago, most of you would probably have responded with skepticism.

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How Pathologists Earned a Place at the ACO Table

Commentary and Opinion by R. Lewis Dark / R. Lewis Dark

ACO Table ALL ANATOMIC PATHOLOGISTS WONDERING ABOUT THEIR PLACE in a healthcare system dominated by accountable care organizations (ACOs) and similar models of integrated clinical care may find useful insights from the experience of a six-partner pathology group in Wisconsin as it established itself as a contributor in one of the state’s largest integrated care networks.

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Labs Have Strategies to Address Narrow Networks

Commentary and Opinion by R. Lewis Dark / R. Lewis Dark

IN TODAY’S EVOLVING HEALTHCARE SYSTEM, labs and pathology groups of all sizes in all communities are dealing with the issues of payers narrowing networks and the formation of ACOs, with all the unknowns about reimbursement that come with this new organizational model of healthcare.

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Florida Lab Story Has National Implications

Commentary and Opinion by R. Lewis Dark / R. Lewis Dark

PLEASE ALLOW ME TO THANK ALL OF YOU READERS who have contacted us with information, rumors, and useful intelligence about UnitedHealthcare’s laboratory benefit management program in Florida that is administered by BeaconLBS, a division of Laboratory Corporation of America. Your input, along with that from physicians in different specialties in Florida and their respective state

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Did Theranos Turn Over its CLIA Lab Director?

Commentary and Opinion by R. Lewis Dark / R. Lewis Dark

PROBABLY NO SINGLE LAB INDUSTRY STORY OF THE PAST 24 MONTHS has generated a higher level of curiosity among pathologists and lab administrators than that of Theranos, the Palo Alto, California-based company that regularly claims it has the technology, the business model, and the low price strategy needed to disrupt the clinical lab testing marketplace.

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Why You Want the Insider’s Perspective of Lab News

Commentary and Opinion by R. Lewis Dark / R. Lewis Dark

Our editorial team was discussing this quote as we assembled this issue of THE DARK REPORT. It features two primary stories. First is the effort by UnitedHealthcare, BeaconLBS (and its owner, Laboratory Corporation of America), to require all physicians and all laboratories serving UHC patients in Florida to comply with a specific system of lab test pre-notification and pre- authorization. We report on more dissatisfaction by physicians about the intent and function of UHC’s laboratory benefits management program.

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Preparing the Next Generation of Lab Leaders

Commentary and Opinion by R. Lewis Dark / R. Lewis Dark

ACROSS THE LAB TESTING INDUSTRY, individual labs are caught in a serious conundrum. On one hand, the ongoing transformation of healthcare and the erosion of lab test revenues are putting the financial squeeze on a large number of clinical labs and pathology groups. On the other hand, at the very moment this is happening, the

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California Hospitals Become Health Insurers

Commentary and Opinion by R. Lewis Dark / R. Lewis Dark

WHAT CHANGES WHEN THE NATION’S HOSPITALS become health insurers? How do pathology practices and clinical laboratories contract to provide lab testing services when their parent hospital is also the insurer? We are about to learn the answers to these questions by watching California. News outlets are reporting that Sutter Health, one of California’s largest integrated

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