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.
Physician Management Companies Exploding, Will Transform Healthcare
CEO SUMMARY: Consolidation and integration of healthcare services will be the dominant trend during the next five years. It happened to commercial laboratories from 1985-95. Widespread hospital consolidation began around 1990 and continues today. Now consolidation is coming to physicians….
Dismal Hospital Finances Behind Lab Joint Venture
CEO SUMMARY: 1995 marked a pace-setting agreement between Columbia and LabCorp. LabCorp would consolidate and manage the laboratories at three Columbia Hospitals. All participants agree that the project has met expectations. But Columbia has yet to clone this model elsewhere. Here’s why…
Management Philosophy Drives UroCor’s Success
CEO SUMMARY: In the year 1997, UroCor shows a financial strength and growth potential unlike most commercial laboratories. UroCor’s current success is a direct result of how UroCor’s management did things differently during the years from 1991 to the present. Much of UroCor’s succes…
Market Assessment Leads Quest To Do Several Deals
CEO SUMMARY: Quest CEO Ken Freeman is moving rapidly to restructure Quest’s regional laboratory system. Using the financial head-start provided by the January spin-off from Corning, Inc., Quest purchased one laboratory and seeks to do joint venture deals in several cities. Quest’s act…
President Of SmithKline Lab Unit Respected As “Tough Competitor”
WITH troubles at Corning/Quest and LabCorp attracting publicity during the previous 18 months, few people observed a discreet but important change at SmithKline Beecham Clinical Laboratories (SBCL). John B. Okkerse, Jr., Ph.D. has quietly assumed fu…
Shareholders Hugely Oversubscribe LabCorp’s $500 Million Offering
COMMERCIAL LABORATORIES may be regaining favor on Wall Street. Laboratory Corporation of America’s $500 million convertible stock offering not only sold out, but was over-subscribed by a huge amount. In addition to the 10 million convertible shares offered, subsc…
National Labs Cut Costs Using Radical Strategies
CEO SUMMARY: All three national laboratories are dumping unprofitable accounts and unprofitable lines of testing. It ends the era when commercial labs “gave away” testing to any client willing to open an account. The three national laboratories are enacting stiffer requirements for ne…
National Lab Strategies Will Impact Competitors
CEO SUMMARY: Not since the era of commercial lab consolidation ended has such a significant trend emerged. As the three national labs eliminate service to unprofitable accounts, profound changes will occur to the market for laboratory and pathology services. How quickly this leads to impr…
Smythe Teaches Methods To Lift Operating Profits
CEO SUMMARY: Efforts by national laboratories to improve profit margins will affect all laboratories. Consequences of this initiative will actually benefit competitors. It provides all laboratories with the opportunity to increase profits. Mark Smythe demonstrates how this can be accompli…
Roche Holdings, Ltd. Acquires Boehringer Mannheim In Merger
CEO SUMMARY: Roche will pay $11 billion to buy Corange Ltd., parent company of Boehringer Mannheim, the world’s number two diagnostics company. Wall Street expects this deal to quicken the pace of consolidation in the healthcare industry. The surprise move will impact clinical laborator…
CURRENT ISSUE
Volume XXXII, No. 13 – September 15, 2025
The Dark Report examines a new bill that would reform PAMA and avoid reimbursement rate cuts scheduled for January 2026. Clinical laboratory leaders are urged to make their voices heard in Congress. Also, an expert describes how labs can fix pre-analytical errors and avoid disaster.
See the full table of contentsHow Much Laboratory Business Intelligence Have You Missed?
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