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.
Bostwick Laboratories Puts Facilities on Market
CEO SUMMARY: Events are unfolding rapidly at Bostwick Laboratories, Inc., of Glen Allen, Virginia. In recent months, the company has listed its facilities in Arizona, Tennessee, New York, and Virginia for sale or lease. In July, it agreed to pay a civil fine of $129,000 to settle…
Crossing State Lines With Digital Pathology
CEO SUMMARY: It is predicted that use of digital pathology will create new care models in the profession of anatomic pathology. An early example of this trend can be found in Bellingham, Washington. Here, the 10 pathologists of Northwest Pathology are using a digital pathology sy…
Why Toronto Is Site of Global Digital Path Center
CEO SUMMARY: GE Healthcare and Omnyx chose Canada to be the location of their new Global Pathology Innovation Centre of Excellence (PICOE). PICOE’s mission is to demonstrate that digital pathology can improve patient outcomes in a cost-effective manner. GE and Omnyx will use PI…
InCyte Pathology Buys DSM Lab in Walla Walla
CEO SUMMARY: For the nation’s thousands of private pathology group practices, consolidation is now a growing trend. The latest example is last week’s acquisition of the three-pathologist practice known as the Davis-Sameh-Meeker Laboratory in Walla Walla, Washington, by InCyte…
Smaller Pathology Groups Explore Consolidation
CEO SUMMARY: In eastern Washington State, InCyte Pathology is developing a strategy that may well be repeated many times over in the coming years. As older pathologists who run smaller groups look to retire, they will consider selling their group practices to larger entities inte…
Pathology Group Establishes Lab Test Exchange Networks
CEO SUMMARY: After several decades of steadfastly maintaining their independence from other pathology groups in their community, progressive hospital-based pathology groups are beginning to create regional laboratory testing networks. These collaborations generally start small an…
Sonic Makes Big Play In AP With CBL Path Buy
CEO SUMMARY: With the announcement that it will purchase CBL Path, Inc., Sonic Healthcare, Ltd., becomes the latest public laboratory company to buy a sizeable presence in the national anatomic pathology (AP) marketplace. For CBL Path, founded in 2003 by ex-Dianon executives and …
Growing Role for Digital Image Analysis in Pathology
CEO SUMMARY: For more than three years, pathologists at Washington University in St. Louis have worked with several different scanning products and digital pathology systems. Step-by-step, the Pathology Department has learned important lessons in how to capture digital images, ar…
Letter to Editor on EMR Donations, Deeply-Discounted Client Prices
Dear Editor: Because THE DARK REPORT is willing to tackle tough issues regarding the business end of the pathology profession, I am writing to call attention to a serious situation. What follows is presented as mostly factual and minimally perceptive. While I have no fe…
EMR Donations, Client Bill Issues in Anatomic Path
CEO SUMMARY: In today’s market for anatomic pathology services, local pathology practices are facing tough competition from national pathology companies that are quite aggressive at using EHR donations and discounted client bill arrangements to win new clients. Attorney Jane Pi…
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