TAG:
compliance program
Mich. Dermatologist Gets 10.5 Years in Fraud Case
CEO SUMMARY: In a federal case involving billing improprieties and insurance fraud, a federal judge sentenced Michigan dermatologist Robert W. Stokes, M.D., to 126 months in prison and ordered him to pay $178,100 in fines and assessments, with the amount of restitution yet to be determine…
Federal Whistleblower Suit Settled by Dianon Systems
IT’S A REMINDER THAT WHISTLEBLOWERS continue to look for opportunities to turn in laboratories, even if the violations are relatively minor. Last month, Dianon Systems Inc., of Stratford, Connecticut, agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle a federal false claims action originally fi…
Path Group Responds to FBI Visits in Stokes Case
CEO SUMMARY: As the FBI launched its investigation of fraudulent billing by Michigan dermatologist Robert W. Stokes, D.O., two years ago, staff at several pathology labs found themselves “up close and personal” with federal healthcare fraud prosecutors. One pathology lab, based on wha…
Quest Wants It Both Ways with Payer Contracts
CEO SUMMARY: Once again, public laboratory companies are pursuing short-term strategies that promise competitive advantage to themselves. But these strategies also carry long term risks that could burden the entire laboratory industry. Contradictions in the current cycle of competition fo…
Pumping Up Performance of Lab Billing & Collections
CEO SUMMARY: Coding, billing, collections, and compliance continue to grow in complexity, making management of the lab’s revenue cycle ever more difficult. One by one, a number of the nation’s largest laboratories are taking steps to automate management of their revenue cycle by utili…
Defense Attorneys Discuss Details Of UroCor Jury Trial
CEO SUMMARY: This was the first criminal case involving anti-kickback violations brought against executives of a public laboratory company. Federal prosecutors charged the defendants with offering inducements to referring physicians in several ways. Defense counsel rebutted the prosecutio…
Privacy Officer Shares Lessons on ID Theft
CEO SUMMARY: “Nothing teaches like experience.” That adage aptly describes the lessons learned at a Seattle hospital after a case of patient identity theft surfaced. Laboratories and pathology groups must be just as alert to the potential for patient identity theft as they are to inap…
Change Beneath Surface Marks 2004 Lab Stories
CEO SUMMARY: Presented here are THE DARK REPORT’S “Ten Biggest Lab Stories of 2004.” These are the events we consider most important to the lab industry during the year. However, in contrast to past years, 2004 lacked the types of blockbuster events which radically change and reshap…
CA, FL, BC Move Forward With Lab Test Contracts
CEO SUMMARY: Medicaid agencies in the bellwether states of California and Florida continue to push ahead with plans to revise laboratory test contract policies. In British Columbia, private laboratory companies face an uncertain future as the provincial health administration maneuvers to …
UroCor’s Sales Tactics Violated Medicare Laws
CEO SUMMARY: By issuing a multi-count criminal indictment against three former UroCor executives, one federal attorney is creating new legal precedents for the laboratory industry. The criminal charges accuse UroCor of inducing physicians through such gambits as deeply-discounted pricing …
CURRENT ISSUE
Volume XXXI, No. 5 – April 8, 2024
The fragmentation of consumer markets is reflected in clinical lab services, and The Dark Report examines this trend and how it will impact labs in the coming years. Also, The Dark Report notes that the FDA has issued a controversial memo to reclassify many high-risk IVD assays.
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