Pathology Trends
Pathology groups face a number of challenging pathology trends in the era of radical healthcare reform.
One of the primary trends is that like clinical laboratories, these businesses are carrying significant and potentially unsustainable levels of unreimbursed services. Although bad debt and uncompensated care in the healthcare industry are not new, they have been increasing at the same time that downward pressure is being applied to pathology reimbursement.
Medical laboratories and pathology groups are also facing enormous levels of change in their clinical, regulatory and financial environments. As the Affordable Care Act is implemented, laboratories see downward pressure on reimbursement at both the federal and payer level, coupled with increased emphasis on efficiency and quality.
Labs and health care providers need to seriously consider moving toward a retail business model. Changes in the health insurance market are now requiring patients to pay more out of pocket, and the perfect storm of bad debt and decreased requirement is pressuring laboratories.
Other pathology trends include:
- Growing emphasis on the continuum of care
- Increasing patient interaction directly with the lab organization
- Mounting demands of interoperability across a proliferation of disparate information technology systems to achieve meaningful use
- Evolving requirements for communication and data sharing with payers, accountable care organizations (ACOs), health information exchanges (HIEs) and other trading partners
Industry observers say that responding to each of these trends requires access to the most complete set of patient data possible. Accurate patient identification and record consolidation is central to achieving these goals.
In addition, labs and pathologists are increasingly urged to add value to the testing services they perform by leveraging information technology. For instance, advanced health information technology can be deployed within clinical labs and pathology groups specifically to meet changing patient expectations, while supporting the needs of client physicians for optimal workflow.
California Pathology Labs to Report Data to State’s Cancer Registry
HEALTHCARE BIG DATA IS ADVANCING in California and all pathologists in the Golden State will be required to submit data to the state’s cancer registry beginning in 2019. California’s new law to support the state’s cancer registry is the latest example of an effort to ensure the timely collecti…
Digital Pathology Systems Will Create Opportunities
CEO SUMMARY: Advanced Pathology Associates, a 15-member private pathology group practice, had the distinction of generating data for the clinical study that Philips submitted to the Food and Drug Administra…
Digital Pathology Can Be Transformative for Labs
CEO SUMMARY: Across the nation, pathologists are at a crossroads. Now that the FDA has cleared a digital pathology and whole slide imaging (WSI) system for use in primary diagnosis, should they adopt this technology sooner or wait until later? One pathologist who has worked with WSI for m…
PAMA Economics Drives Merger Of Two Seattle-Area Pathology Groups
CEO SUMMARY: Among the three chief reasons for the merger of CellNetix and Puget Sound Institute of Pathology, the most compelling was the need to address the challenges in the current reimbursement environment and to prepare for reductions in payment to pathologists expected in the comin…
Florida Pathology Group Lost Volume After BeaconLBS Started
CEO SUMMARY: A 22-physician pathology group in Tampa has complied with rules for lab test ordering that UnitedHealthcare and BeaconLBS established, yet has experienced a steep decline in the volume of specimens it receives. Physicians told the pathologists that other labs were not using t…
Despite Tough Anatomic Pathology Market, Bostwick Opens New Laboratory
CEO SUMMARY: Once again, entrepreneur and pathologist David G. Bostwick, MD, is starting up a new lab company. Granger Diagnostics is now open and is located in North Chesterfield, Virginia. It is designed to be an anatomic, clinical, and molecular pathology reference laboratory. In an ex…
LabCorp to Purchase Pathology, Inc. in Calif.
CEO SUMMARY: It is one of those clinical laboratory deals that was announced before the end of 2015. Laboratory Corporation of America said it will acquire most of the operating assets of Pathology Inc., of Torrance, California, and that the acquired lab “will cease operations” upon t…
Aurora Diagnostics Buys Toledo Pathology Group
CEO SUMMARY: Consultants in Laboratory Medicine of Greater Toledo was sold to Aurora Diagnostics last month. CLM’s president said that, as an ancillary service, pathology has little appeal to hospital administrators who want to cut costs as quickly as possible, and all hospital-based se…
NeoGenomics to Acquire Clarient for $275 Million
CEO SUMMARY: In a surprise move that further consolidates national anatomic pathology services, NeoGenomics will acquire Clarient Inc., from General Electric Healthcare. General Electric is getting cash, and preferred and common stock. The two companies announced plans to pursue integrate…
Pathologists Contribute To Care in Wisconsin ACO
CEO SUMMARY: From the launch in 2013 of a big accountable care organization in Wisconsin, the North Shore Pathologists at Columbia-St. Mary’s Hospital have been involved. Among the lessons learned are the importance of structuring the pathology contract with the hospital to antic…
CURRENT ISSUE
Volume XXXI, No. 6 – April 29, 2024
Laboratory managers will want to note that The Dark Report itself was targeted by the fraudsters who hit Change Health in a cyberattack. Also, one lab has some innovative methods of combatting the chronic staffing shortage, including hiring college graduates and students.
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