By Joseph Burns, from the Volume XXVI No. 4 – March 18, 2019 issue
CEO SUMMARY: Hospital and health system lab managers say some vendors of electronic health record systems for independent physicians are aggressively raising the fees they charge labs. Labs serving outreach physicians now pay more in two ways, they say. First, they pay the price the vendor charges to implement an LIS-to-EHR interface. Second, they pay
By Joseph Burns, from the Volume XXVI No. 3 – February 25, 2019 issue
CEO SUMMARY: Inform Diagnostics, formerly Miraca Life Sciences, settled the federal qui tam case while denying wrongdoing. The $63.5 million settlement will by paid by the former owner, Miraca Holdings, a Japanese company. The federal Department of Justice alleged that the company—then known as Miraca Life Sciences—violated the False Claims Act by engaging in what
By Joseph Burns, from the Volume XXVI No. 3 – February 25, 2019 issue
CEO SUMMARY: Some of blockchain’s proponents view its potential uses in health information technology to combat cybersecurity threats and improve the secure exchange of health information through electronic medical record systems. But for clinical laboratories, blockchain could be the key to improve payment processes and help eliminate errors in payment and allowed amounts. In theory,
By Joseph Burns, from the Volume XXVI No. 2 – February 4, 2019 issue
CEO SUMMARY: It’s been a common strategy among managed care payers to seek the lowest prices for clinical laboratory testing when negotiating contracts with labs. However, lower prices may become less important over time as the health system moves away from fee-for-service payment toward value-based reimbursement. Now evidence is accumulating that at least some large
By Joseph Burns, from the Volume XXV No. 10 – July 9, 2018 issue
CEO SUMMARY: As health networks and hospitals consider outsourcing their lab outreach programs, the lab team at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (D-H) offers lessons about the value of retaining outreach. D-H is now in the eighth year of a sustained expansion of its laboratory outreach business. It has combined its lab outreach strategy with a proven
By Joseph Burns, from the Volume XXV, No. 1 – January 2, 2018 issue
IN THE FIRST BROAD EXPANSION OF ITS pilot decision-support program for clinical lab testing in Florida, UnitedHealthcare (UHC) will add genetic and molecular tests, drug tests, and pathology procedures, among other assays starting in two months.
On March 1, UHC will expand its laboratory benefit management program in Florida beyond the initial 80 routine anatomical and
By Robert Michel, from the Volume XXIV, No. 16 – November 20, 2017 issue
CEO SUMMARY: With each passing year, the primary role of hospital and health system labs evolves in a different direction than that of independent lab companies. This trend is a response to the creation of integrated delivery networks paid on value and how they are scored on their ability to keep patients out of hospitals
By Joseph Burns, from the Volume XXIV, No. 13 – September 18, 2017 issue
CEO SUMMARY: NYU Langone Health recognized the clinical and financial advantages of providing competitive lab outreach testing services to its employed physicians. The laboratory joint venture with Sonic Healthcare USA will allow NYU Langone to increase use of its hospital labs and will facilitate standardizing its testing methods, results, and reference ranges. The first phase
By Joseph Burns, from the Volume XXIV, No. 11 – August 7, 2017 issue
CEO SUMMARY: Since Anthem and AIM Specialty Health began a prior-authorization program for genetic testing July 1, a Northeast lab has not had any genetic tests approved through the new system. Physicians told the lab that the steps required for prior authorization were disruptive. Those doctors who regularly order genetic tests had not been trained
By Joseph Burns, from the Volume XXIV, No. 10 – July 17, 2017 issue
CEO SUMMARY: Quest Diagnostics is no longer an equity partner in the CompuNet Clinical Laboratory joint venture, which has operated successfully since its founding in 1986. Typical of other lab JVs and inpatient lab management agreements that the hospital or health system partners do not renew, none of the owners of CompuNet will comment on
