Tag: emr

Sonic Uses Lab Data, Patient-Contact Tools, to Improve Outcomes

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CEO SUMMARY: In its work for a federally qualified health center, Sonic Healthcare USA helped physicians use a data-driven approach to population health management that incorporated integrated financial and clinical analytics. Also, Sonic developed technologies that give ordering physicians clinical decision support and targeted patient engagement tools. It then developed a way to contact patients

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LAB BRIEFS

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DUBAI TO TEST DNA OF ITS 3 MILLION CITIZENS
RECENTLY, GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS in Dubai announced a plan to conduct genetic testing on all three million residents. Experts say this is an unprecedented decision by any national government.

This human genome project will be part of the Dubai 10X initiative. “The authority is looking to target all residents of

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Positive Patient ID System Catches Patients Cheating on Toxicology Tests

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CEO SUMMARY: The urine drug testing industry is challenged every day to detect the large number of patients trying to cheat on their drug tests. GenoTox Laboratories of Austin, Texas, developed a DNA-authentication method for urine samples that allows the lab to detect when patients have used a substitute for urine when undergoing medication- and

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UnitedHealth to Start Gene Test Pre-Approval

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CEO SUMMARY: With programs now at the nation’s two largest insurers, is it possible to argue that prior-authorization is going mainstream? Some observers say, yes, as THE DARK REPORT predicted. What is certain is that starting Nov. 1, UnitedHealthcare is requiring prior authorization for genetic and molecular tests for its fully-insured commercial members nationwide. That

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Labs: Watch for Whistleblowers! You Can’t Predict Who’s Filing

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NEWS STORIES ABOUT TWO DIFFERENT FEDERAL WHISTLEBLOWER CASES against lab companies provide a reminder that managers of every clinical laboratory and pathology group must be vigilant about compliance, because potential whistleblowers can emerge from the unlikeliest of places.

The first example involves Piedmont Pathology in Hickory, N.C. In May, it agreed to pay the federal government

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Health System Lab Is Genotyping To Identify Best Drugs for Patients

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CEO SUMMARY: One essential element of precision medicine will be the regular use of pharmacogenomic testing to provide additional guidance to physicians when selecting the most appropriate therapeutics and optimal dose for each individual patient. Despite the reluctance of private payers and Medicare to reimburse for pharmacogenomic tests, Avera Institute for Human Genetics (AIHG) in

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In Texas, Questions for UnitedHealth, BeaconLBS

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CEO SUMMARY: As of January 1, 2017, clinical laboratories and pathology groups in Texas will find it more difficult to serve the 500,000 patients enrolled in UnitedHealthcare’s fully-insured commercial plans in the Lone Star State. That’s because—just as it did in Florida—UnitedHealthcare, with its partners BeaconLBS and Laboratory Corporation of America, is implementing its laboratory

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Some Florida Docs Are Not Using BeaconLBS System

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CEO SUMMARY: Some physicians in Florida are not complying with UnitedHealthcare’s laboratory benefit management program since the claims impact took effect on April 15. Although officials from UnitedHealthcare and BeaconLBS, a business division of LabCorp, state publicly that the program is going well, physicians and several state medical associations continue to voice serious objections to several key elements of UnitedHealthcare’s lab test utilization management program.

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