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.
Myriad to Buy Counsyl, to Gain Presence in NIPS Test Sector
LATE LAST MONTH, Myriad Genetics Inc. announced a definitive agreement to acquire Counsyl, Inc., an innovative genetic testing company in South San Francisco, Calif., for $375 million. In a deal that is expected to close by early next year, Myriad will use a combinat…
Why Lab Companies Buy Bankrupt Rural Hospitals
CEO SUMMARY: Seeking the higher lab-test payment rates that insurers pay hospital labs, some lab testing companies are buying rural, financially-struggling hospitals in what may be the latest twist on the pass-through billing strategy that certain lab testing firms have found to be lucrat…
Big Insurers Seek Value-Based Deals with LabCorp, Quest
IT’S THE END OF AN ERA for the strategy of being the exclusive national lab provider for a major health insurer. Last week, the two largest clinical laboratory companies announced that the 10-year-old exclusive lab testing deals each had with a different big health insurer had crumbled. In 2007, …
WSJ Reporter Tells All About Downfall of Troubled Theranos
CEO SUMMARY: While Theranos was a darling of the business and national media, Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou was hearing troubling reports about patients who got incongruent lab results that put them at risk for inappropriate medical…
Cleveland Clinic Lab Has Multi-year Test Utilization Success
CEO SUMMARY: Over the 24 months of a first-generation round of laboratory test utilization management projects, the Cleveland Clinic laboratories prevented more than 30,000 duplicate or inappropriate test orders, saving almost $2.7 million. Now implementing a second-generation of labtest …
Key Lab Trends Described At Executive War College
CEO SUMMARY: Innovative clinical labs and pathology groups are absorbing this year’s Medicare Part B price cuts while continuing to pursue opportunities to add value. A common theme from many speakers at last week’s Executive War College in New Orleans is that the lab must get mastery…
Attorney Says Labs Face Increased Legal Liability
CEO SUMMARY: For many reasons, including cuts to lab test prices that health insurers pay, narrow networks, and more competition for lab test referrals, a significant number of lab companies are seeking ways to increase market share. These methods include the use of new laboratory test ar…
Georgia Micro Lab Slashes TAT by Almost Two Days
CEO SUMMARY: Two projects to boost the performance of the microbiology laboratory at University Health Services in Augusta, Ga., significantly reduced test turnaround times in ways that contributed to improved patient outcomes. The first project was in 2016, when the lab introduced mass s…
Facing Lawsuit Filed by Humana, Ameritox Closes Lab, Sells Assets
IN MAY, THE LONG-STRUGGLING Ameritox, LLC, is scheduled to close its laboratory in Greensboro, N.C., according to reporting in the Triad Business Journal. Early this month, the drug-monitoring and urine-analysis company filed a notice with the North Carolina Department of Co…
D.C. Circuit Court Reverses Medical Necessity Ruling
MANY LAB EXECUTIVES were concerned last year after a judge in the District of Columbia Circuit Court ruled that clinical laboratories need to determine that all lab test services physicians order are medically necessary. The court also ruled that ordering physicians do not need to determine medical …
CURRENT ISSUE
Volume XXXII, No. 6 – April 21, 2025
Now that a federal judge has vacated the FDA’s LDT rule, The Dark Report analyzes the judgement and notes the various steps the FDA could take in response. Also, lab testing at pharmacies is proving to be less successful than was once anticipated.
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