Issues Archive

The most complete archive of clinical and pathology lab industry news available, including issues from 1997 to the present.

Volume XIX No. 10 – July 16, 2012

In this issue:

BLUECARD CHANGES outlined here should be evaluated against the assumption that the motive behind the changes is to restrict the access of local labs to BlueCard patients while reducing the amount of reimbursement paid for lab testing as much as possible; this move has the potential to seriously undermine the financial underpinnings of hospital laboratories. Also, a pioneering digital pathology collaboration involves the pathology departments at the medical schools of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China.

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Volume XIX No. 9 – June 25, 2012

In this issue:

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE IS ON THE VERGE of becoming the next “big thing” in clinical laboratory management. Lab teams are using real-time data dashboards to quickly identify problems and take proactive steps to raise service levels to clients. THE DARK REPORT notes that these software systems and related tools are helping raise the bar on service and quality for South Bend Medical Foundation. In addition, hospital labs and pathology groups to are working to add value by offering subspecialty expertise in molecular diagnostics, genetic testing, and “companion informatics.”

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Volume XIX No. 8 – June 4, 2012

In this issue:

THE DARK REPORT EXPLAINS HOW both employers and health insurers are taking aggressive steps to rein in healthcare costs. Several strategies to control spending and create powerful new incentives for providers are gaining favor. At this year’s Executive War College, Paul Mango of McKinsey & Company, explained these strategies and emphasized that new models for handling health risk are changing the status quo. Another report notes that despite laws prohibiting it, Florida labs regularly violated state rules by placing specimen collectors and other lab employees in physicians’ offices. Now a new law enacted by the 2012 Florida legislature specifically prohibits these activities.

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Volume XIX No. 7 – May 14, 2012

In this issue:

ALL MEDICAL DIRECTORS AND LAB ADMINISTRATORS must understand the implications of what appears to be an emerging trend in CLIA laboratory enforcement: a Catch-22 in which an unknown number of labs have found that taking all the proper steps to complete proficiency testing (PT) led to violations of federal CLIA rules and suspension of their laboratory licenses. Also in this issue, THE DARK REPORT delivers a report on how a Lean improvement project saved $3.5 million for Sarasota Memorial Health Care System.

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Volume XIX No. 6 – April 23, 2012

In this issue:

HERE ARE THE “TOP 10 TECH TRENDS” identified last month by Healthcare Informatics. A common theme is the need for information technology and healthcare informatics to serve patient care organizations, a new term that describes care models such as accountable care organizations (ACO) and medical homes. In similar ways, clinical labs and pathology groups will need to deploy robust informatics capabilities to serve providers. Also, Congress decides that anatomic pathologists can no longer bill Medicare for the Technical Component services on surgical specimens.

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Volume XIX No. 5 – April 2, 2012

In this issue:

LIKE NEVER BEFORE, health insurers are putting strong pressure on hospitals to dramatically reduce the price of their outpatient and outreach laboratory tests. At managed care contract renewal time, more hospitals and health systems report much stronger pressure from health insurers to accept deep cuts to laboratory test prices. At the same time, managed care companies are getting smarter at designing health benefits plans that motivate and/or incentivize patients to choose lower-cost network laboratory providers. And in New Hampshire, that effort is working and labs are being cut out of lab testing.

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Volume XIX No. 4 – March 12, 2012

In this issue:

FOR MORE THAN THREE DECADES, independent lab companies have waxed fat by increasing their respective market share of lab test referrals from office-based physicians. This era is poised to end as growing numbers of office-based physicians begin to practice medicine within an accountable care organization (ACO) or similar new integrated care delivery model, while, at the same time, both government and private payers aggressively push down reimbursement for lab tests.

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Volume XIX No. 3 – February 20, 2012

In this issue:

IN THE SECOND INSTALLMENT of our exclusive two-part interview, the executive directors of two regional laboratory networks formed in the 1990s (one in Michigan and one in Washington state) share their assessment of why their respective lab networks have performed strongly over the past two decades. They also identify the reasons why it is more challenging for anatomic pathology groups to form regional networks. Also, a new whistleblower lawsuit filed in federal court claims that, in the 2007 contract between UnitedHealth Group and Laboratory Corporation of America, LabCorp’s discounted lab test prices were a kickback that violated Medicare law.

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Volume XIX No. 2 – January 30, 2012

In this issue:

HOSPITAL LABORATORIES in Detroit, Michigan (1992) and Seattle, Washington (1996) banded together to form regional laboratory networks. In both networks, one primary goal was to protect and expand access to managed care patients by contracting with health insurers as a single entity that offered regional cov-erage. Now, almost two decades later, each regional laboratory network is prospering. In this exclusive two-part interview, THE DARK REPORT brings together the executive directors of both networks to discuss the reasons why their respective networks have lasted two decades, along with useful lessons learned about managing regional lab networks.

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Volume XIX No. 1 – January 9, 2012

In this issue:

GIVEN THE SPECIFIC NEWS STORIES that make up THE DARK REPORT’S list of the “Top Ten Lab Stories for 2011,” it might be said that 2011 was a rather quiet year overshadowed by anticipation of the coming reforms mandated by the Accountable Care Act of 2010. For the clinical lab testing industry, 2011 was a year where much of the news was about government and payer proposals. The biggest lab acquisitions of the year were done by major corporations buying their first lab companies. Also, in an unusual collaboration, nine participating Pennsylvania hospitals dramatically reduced blood specimen labeling errors.

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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.

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