TAG:
diagnostic testing
Doctors at Johns Hopkins Improve Lab Test Utilization
CEO SUMMARY: Efforts to help physicians improve their utilization of clinical lab tests paid big dividends at the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland. Working collaboratively, physicians and the clinical lab team identified overused or needless cardiac biomarker te…
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…
UCLA, Centre to Open Lab in China to Offer High Quality Testing
CEO SUMMARY: To fill the unmet demand for quality clinical laboratory testing in China, a partnership between pathologists at UCLA and Centre Testing International Corp. of Shenzen have built and will operate a lab facility in Shanghai. The new lab will open by late September and…
Better Data Needed to Support Pathologists as Consultants
MULTIPLE TRENDS ARE UNFOLDING that mutually reinforce the need for pathologists and PhDs to be experts and consultants in how physicians order and follow up on molecular diagnostics assays and genetic tests. “Healthcare in the United States is approaching a tipping point that can greatly favor pat…
Physician Group ACO Targets High-Volume Tests for Savings
HERE’S AN EXAMPLE OF HOW an accountable care organization views cost control. Atrius Health sought to control excess costs by focusing on high-priced items. It started with inappropriate hospitalizations and imaging studies and moved on to laboratory testing. Atrius Health is…
Federal Judge Rules Against Idaho Hospital in Antitrust Case
LAST MONTH, A FEDERAL JUDGE RULED that St. Luke’s Health System of Boise, Idaho, violated antitrust laws when, in 2012, it acquired Saltzer Medical Group, the largest independent medical practice in the state. In ruling against the merger of a hospital and physici…
Medicare OPPS Rule Has Pitfalls for Labs
CEO SUMMARY: On January 1, the new Medicare rule for requiring bundled or packaged reimbursement for certain services covered by the hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) became effective. Just four days earlier (on December 27), Medicare officials issued instructions on h…
Claritas Is Example of New Lab Business Model
CEO SUMMARY: One by one, new business models for clinical laboratory testing are popping up. Each is a response to healthcare’s rapid evolution, the ongoing decline in lab test reimbursement, and the growing role for molecular diagnostics and genetic testing. In Cambridge, Massachusetts…
Hospital and LabCorp Hit with $50 Million Verdict
LAWYERS CALL IT A ‘WRONGFUL BIRTH.’ When no one spots an error in prenatal genetic testing processes, a wrongful birth can result, and that’s what happened in a case that ended last month with a jury award of $50 million to a family in Burien, Washington. Defendants Valley Medical Cent…
Genetic Testing Creates New Legal Risks for Labs
CEO SUMMARY: Last month, in Seattle, Washington, a jury ordered Laboratory Corporation of America and Valley Medical Center each to pay $25 million following a lawsuit about a ‘wrongful’ birth. At issue was how genetic tests were ordered, performed, and reported. This court case is th…
CURRENT ISSUE
Volume XXXI, No. 6 – April 29, 2024
Laboratory managers will want to note that The Dark Report itself was targeted by the fraudsters who hit Change Health in a cyberattack. Also, one lab has some innovative methods of combatting the chronic staffing shortage, including hiring college graduates and students.
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