By Joseph Burns, from the Volume XXII NO. 15 - October 26, 2015 issue
CEO SUMMARY: Some in the lab industry had high hopes that passage of the Protecting Access to Medicare Act (PAMA) last year would favorably resolve a number of important issues. However, those hopes were dashed following the September 25 release by CMS of a proposed rule setting out how it will collect market test prices
By Joseph Burns, from the Volume XIX No. 17 - December 10, 2012 issue
CEO SUMMARY: Deteriorating finances at many rural hospitals and smaller community hospitals is a growing trend. It is also a new consulting opportunity for local pathologists because financially-strapped hospitals often give their labs inadequate working capital and lack the staff needed to comply fully with state and federal compliance requirements. In Shreveport, Louisiana, Delta Pathology
By Joseph Burns, from the Volume XIX No. 11 - August 6, 2012 issue
CEO SUMMARY: For years, severe penalties in cases where a laboratory has inadvertently erred in handling proficiency testing (PT) specimens have been a point of contention between the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the clinical laboratory profession. Two bills proposed in Congress would give CMS more discretion in how it interprets the
By Robert Michel, from the Volume XV No. 15 - November 10, 2008 issue
CEO SUMMARY: Once again, government health bureaucrats are overreaching in their efforts to reduce spending and collect money from any source. A California pathologist has been hit with a Medi-Cal demand for $6.4 million in repayments, simply because he served as laboratory director for two lab companies that Medi-Cal knew had closed before auditors requested
