TAG:
diagnostic laboratories
Is New Cycle of Fraud Plaguing Lab Industry?
CEO SUMMARY: Taken collectively, the growing number of federal investigations of clinical lab companies and health insurer lawsuits against lab companies alleging fraudulent business practices signals a disturbing new trend for the lab industry. Although these allegations are lev…
Cigna Audits Tox Test Labs For Proof that Patients Paid
CEO SUMMARY: In an unusually strong move, health insurer Cigna is auditing laboratories, including some labs that do toxicology testing. In these audits, the health insurer seeks documentation that the testing is medically necessary and that the laboratories are collecting copaym…
Combining Lean with Lab Automation to Get Impressive Results
CEO SUMMARY: By combining total lab automation with Lean techniques in a comprehensive makeover of its microbiology lab, one of the largest labs providing hospital acute care and community microbiology services in North America achieved major benefits. Benefits ranged from impro…
OIG Says It Is Ready to Target Physicians in Kickback Cases
PHYSICIANS WHO PARTICIPATE IN schemes that violate anti-kickback and fraud statutes will be at greater risk of prosecution by federal healthcare officials. This development comes following the June 9 release by the OIG of “Fraud Alert: Physician Compensation Arrangements May Result in Significant Li…
Will Federal Prosecutors Pursue HDL Lab Execs and Physicians?
WHERE WAS MUCH TO BE LEARNED when, on April 9, federal prosecutors announced settlements of multiple whistleblower lawsuits against Health Diagnostics Laboratory, Inc. of Richmond, Virginia, and Singulex Inc. of Alameda, California. First, the Department of Justice structured a…
LipoScience Could Find No Other Interested Buyer than LabCorp
ONE EXAMPLE OF HOW TOUGH TIMES ARE for companies offering proprietary or patent-protected tests is the acquisition of LipoScience by Laboratory Corporation of America in a deal that was disclosed last September. It was announced that LabCorp would pay $85 million, o…
Wall Street Journal Raises Allegations of Lab Fraud
CEO SUMMARY: Federal investigators are looking into possible violations of the antikickback law by a number of labs offering cardiology tests. The labs under investigation are alleged to have paid physicians processing fees of up to $20 per patient, the Journal reported in a front page st…
Aetna Files Suit against NJ Lab, Plans to Sue Two More Labs
FINALLY, A MAJOR HEALTH INSURER IS taking a hard line against clinical laboratories it suspects of committing fraud. Aetna Health, Inc., and Aetna Life Insurance Company, of Hartford, Connecticut, have sued one lab company and included physicians as defendants in tha…
Test Utilization Targeted by UnitedHealth, LabCorp
CEO SUMMARY: Many independent laboratories serving patients in Florida are unhappy about the decision by UnitedHealth (UNH) to initiate a pilot program that calls for LabCorp’s BeaconLBS subsidiary to handle prior authorization for certain lab tests. UNH’s laboratory benefit managemen…
Genesis Outreach Lab Acquired by LabCorp
CEO SUMMARY: Sources say that Genesis Clinical Laboratory of Berwyn, Illinois, owned by McNeal Hospital, is being sold to Laboratory Corporation of America. Neither party has publicly acknowledged completion of the sale. It is the latest example of consolidation within the clinical lab in…
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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