TAG:
lab executive
CPI Lab Fee Adjustment Threatened by New Bill
CEO SUMMARY: Once again, the laboratory testing industry has been singled out as a healthcare “whipping boy” by Congressional aides. In working to develop the next federal budget, legislators again propose to deny annual CPI price updates for laboratory tests. This won’t be anything…
Commercial Lab JVs With Hospitals Are Declining In Number
CEO SUMMARY: There are many reasons why a properly-designed and well-managed laboratory test joint venture (JV) between a commercial lab company and a hospital should succeed. But no matter how strong such concepts look on paper, the real world has proven to be a harsh environment. A hand…
Pharmacy Web-Ordering Now A Physician Priority
STRONG PRESSURES ARE MOTIVATING office-based physicians to adopt electronic ordering for prescriptions. In part, this is because of the drive to eliminate unnecessary medical errors. Estimates are that 6% of the nation’s physicians now use an electronic method to order prescriptions for their pati…
Specialty Labs Coping With Unique Challenges
CEO SUMMARY: Few laboratory executives have ever been tested as intensely as those of Specialty Laboratories, Inc. Since the first of the year, Quest Diagnostics Incorporated has purchased two of its biggest lab clients. In April, state and federal lab regulators issued sanctions. Both de…
High Cost of New Assays Stretching Lab Budgets
CEO SUMMARY: Growing numbers of hospital labs report that higher costs of new diagnostic tests have become a new management problem. That’s because diagnostic manufacturers are developing tests around a new business model, one that calls for higher pricing based on a premise of higher c…
Is Physicians’ Office Testing Evolving Toward an Oligopoly?
CEO SUMMARY: One of the most unpopular industries with consumers is the airline industry. At the national level, it is an oligopoly—dominated by seven carriers. But in many cities, it is a monopoly, with one airline flying 80% of the seats in and out of town. Ongoing consolidation of re…
State, Federal Regulators Target Specialty Labs
CEO SUMMARY: Specialty Laboratories, Inc. has earned the dubious honor of being the first-ever publicly-traded laboratory to have its CLIA-88 license revoked by federal regulators, terminating its right to payment for services covered by Medicare and Medicaid. The revocation is slated to …
Clinical Decision Support Systems Arrive
FORWARD THINKERS IN CLINICAL LABORATORIES and anatomic pathology groups have always recognized the substantial, but as yet unharvested, potential that would accrue to the healthcare system were clinicians to make better use of laboratory testing. All of us know stories and anecdotes about how certai…
Catfight in New York Over Lab Supplies Law
CEO SUMMARY: All labs serving physicians’ offices worry about the delicate balance between complying with laws governing inducement and protecting clients against competing labs who interpret those same laws more liberally. Recent events in New York state graphically demonstrate the com…
Clinical Decision Support System Improves Lab Test Ordering
CEO SUMMARY: Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s “WizOrder” demonstrates that a well-designed clinical decision support system can help physicians make better use of laboratory tests. The early successes of WizOrder demonstrate that the need for improved utilization and applicati…
CURRENT ISSUE
Volume XXXII, No. 6 – April 21, 2025
Now that a federal judge has vacated the FDA’s LDT rule, The Dark Report analyzes the judgement and notes the various steps the FDA could take in response. Also, lab testing at pharmacies is proving to be less successful than was once anticipated.
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