Laboratory Management
Laboratory management in today’s clinical lab industry is changing rapidly and facing entirely new challenges. One problem is the lack of upcoming younger lab managers, as the retirements of baby boomer pathologists, medical technologists and lab scientists are in the near future. These individuals make up the largest proportion of supervisors, managers, and lab administrators working in labs today.
As they retire, every clinical lab and pathology group needs to have the next generation of leaders ready to step up and assume responsibilities. But, across the lab industry, there are limited opportunities for every lab’s brightest up-and-comers to get the regular management development opportunities that are common among Fortune 500 companies. The Dark Intelligence Group has called for the establishment of a mentoring program to help overcome this problem.
At the same time, downward pressure on reimbursements and mounting competition have created an environment that requires much more effort for a medical lab to grow and thrive.
Legislation, including the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) of 2009 and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) of 2010, have placed significant demands on medical laboratories and healthcare providers to improve internal efficiency even while offering more services for less money. This pressure to “do more with less” is further compounded by the need to deliver increasingly personalized client service to retain and win clients.
With the era of fee-for-service medicine coming to a close, every clinical laboratory and anatomic pathology organization needs a strategy for getting paid, as new reimbursement models that support patient-centric care will make up a larger portion of lab revenues.
The challenge for every clinical laboratory manager is to understand how to evolve from a business model that is accession-centric or volume-centric to one that is patient-centric.
Many clinical laboratories today are developing data repositories to logically link all transactional and other information about a patient. These repositories allow physicians to see all relevant information, identify trends, and provide better care as a result, enabling labs to provide greater value to their customers, patients and payers, thus creating more value and becoming more patient-centric.
Invitae Cuts Costs to Rebuild Oncology Testing Pipeline
INVITAE CORPORATION, A MEDICAL GENETICS COMPANY that had a $1.34 billion loss during the nine months ending Sept. 30, 2023, recently announced coming actions to cut costs and change operations. The San Francisco-based company sold “certain reproductive health assets including ca…
Google, Epic to Help Hospitals Migrate EHR Data to Cloud
GOOGLE CLOUD OF MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF., inked a new deal with Epic Systems designed to encourage healthcare providers to move electronic health record (EHR) data to the cloud. This relationship will include efforts to step up the use of artificial intelligence (AI) an…
September Saw 153% Increase in Ransomware Attacks
CEO SUMMARY: Most ransomware attacks don’t generate news stories because the victimized organizations don’t want other threat actors to learn if they paid a ransom to regain access to their information systems. Experts point out that more cyberattacks are happening and that the attack…
OIG Reports Its Findings about CDC’s First COVID Test Problems
ONE MAJOR FAILURE BY FEDERAL AGENCIES in the first days of the COVID-19 pandemic was the development and release of an inaccurate and unreliable SARS-CoV-2 test, intended for use by public health labs. This was the finding of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) …
CLIA Lab Directors Must Watch Delegated Duties
CEO SUMMARY: Laboratory accredito…
Outreach Nets Hospital Lab $2.5M in One Year
CEO SUMMARY: Tucson Medical Center had sold its outreach business to a commercial laboratory two decades earlier, but wanted to bring those services back to its in-house lab. Early work with the finance de…
Labcorp and Quest Discuss Outreach Acquisition Potential
GIVEN THE POTENTIAL UPSIDE OF HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN ADDED REVENUES, both Labcorp and Quest Diagnostics remain on the prowl to acquire more hospital laboratory outreach …
Lab Data Crucial to Insurer Risk Adjustment Models
CEO SUMMARY: Payers who use risk adjustment models as part of Medicare Advantage need diagnostic data that helps them document ICD-10 diagnoses that earn them higher premium payments for sicker pat…
Lab News Briefs: Joint Commission, Bon Secours, Anthem, Walmart
Joint Commission Looks at Cyberattacks The Joint Commission issued a Sentinel Event Alert for hospitals to address cyberattacks. The alert pr…
Guerrilla Kaizen Events Bring Rapid Change and Cost Savings
CEO SUMMARY: Lean Six Sigma principles are familiar to clinical laboratory and pathology leaders. But a lesser-known offshoot called “guerrilla Kaizen” aims to rapidly identify inefficiencies an…
CURRENT ISSUE
Volume XXXII, No. 1 – January 6, 2025
The Dark Report examines how AI is being used to predict the outcomes of FDA LDT lawsuits. Also, this issue is Part Two of a series about boosting pathology compensation in different settings, including hospitals. Two experienced pathology consultants identify the most effective approaches when negotiating Part A pathology agreements with hospitals and health systems, along with how to use data to bolster these negotiations.
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