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.
Why Insurers Are Buying Office-Based Physicians
WHEN THE NEWS BECAME PUBLIC earlier this month that UnitedHealth Group was quietly purchasing physician groups in selected areas of the country, there was a flurry of news articles recognizing this as a new trend. These news stories came after July 1. That’s the date when Kaiser Health N…
Seven Deadly Sins of Lab Management Are Much Too Common
CEO SUMMARY: Pity the poor laboratory manager of today. Lab budgets are shrinking. It is difficult to staff adequate numbers of skilled medical technologists. Baby boomers are now retiring. At the same time, accreditation and licensure inspections are becoming tougher. Recently, …
Lack of Succession Plan Now Hurts Many Labs
CEO SUMMARY: Throughout the past decade, laboratory administrators and pathologists have been reminded about the importance of having a succession plan in their laboratory. Now one veteran lab industry CEO says the lack of a succession plan, unexpected retirements, the d…
Using Audits to Uncover Bad Data in the Lab
CEO SUMMARY: Labs using Lean, Six Sigma, and similar quality management methods are now putting these tools to a new purpose. They are being employed to validate the accuracy of metrics designed to monitor and manage work processes directly related to turnaround times and custome…
Time for Labs to Use Web To Recruit Med Techs
CEO SUMMARY: On the Web, clinical laboratories have a chance to identify potential new hires weeks or months in advance and to interact with potential job candidates in ways that were not possible in the past. An experienced lab recruiter explains how labs can benefit from these …
10 Strategies to Boost Med Tech Recruiting
CEO SUMMARY: Headhunters regularly see the best and worst of clinical laboratories in the areas of medical technologist recruiting and retention. Based on her experience, veteran recruiter Peggy McKee offers 10 proven strategies that every laboratory can use to improve both its recruitmen…
More Hospitals Consider PAML’s Lab JV Model
CEO SUMMARY: One joint venture at a time, PAML is convincing hospital and health system CEOs about the benefits of building a thriving laboratory outreach business. For their part, facing budget cutbacks and a decline in Medicare reimbursement, more hospital administrato…
Lab Manager Training Program Coming to Four Cities This Fall
WHEN IT COMES TO PREPARING the next generation of laboratory managers to assume leadership roles, pathologists and lab administrators have few options. That is about to change. This fall, in four different cities, workshops will be conducted specifically to provide your laboratory’s most promising…
HIEs Boost Fortunes of Community Hospital Labs
CEO SUMMARY: Regional health information exchanges (HIEs) are becoming more common. In Southern Indiana, the HealthLINC HIE is boosting the value that the community hospital laboratory provides to physicians. At the top of the list is expedited turnaround of laboratory test resul…
Actions of Ex-Employees Can Breach Lab Security
CEO SUMMARY: Lab managers should take steps to protect patient data and proprietary information. This includes customer lists, payer contracts, customer-specific pricing, sales force compensation information, lab testing intellectual property, and protected health information. Te…
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.
See the full table of contentsHow Much Laboratory Business Intelligence Have You Missed?
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