TAG:
lab test utilization
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…
Broward Health’s Lab Pursues Multiple Ways to Cut Lab Costs
CEO SUMMARY: Tasked with cutting $2 million from their lab’s annual operating budget, the lab team at Broward Health System instituted changes that included a lab test formulary and ordering algorithms. In collaboration with physicians, these changes reduced the use of outmoded tests wh…
Boosting the Lab’s Role in Collaborative Care
CEO SUMMARY: Collaborative care is an essential element of accountable care organizations (ACO) and other emerging models of integrated clinical care. At MedCentral Health System, one clinical chemist has held a key place on the physician team that develops order sets and clinical alerts….
Today’s Lab Test Model Won’t Survive Reforms
CEO SUMMARY: For more than three decades, independent lab companies have waxed fat by increasing their respective market share of lab test referrals from office-based physicians. This era is poised to end as growing numbers of office-based physicians begin to practice medicine within an a…
Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp Report Second Quarter Earnings
JUST ONE DAY APART, the nation’s two largest laboratory testing companies reported second quarter and half-year earnings for 2011. Each financial report opened a window into marketplace developments for the first six months of this year. First to release its earnings report was Quest Diagn…
Controlling Test Utilization By Physician Use of CPOE
CEO SUMMARY: Systems for computerized physician order entry (CPOE) and clinical decision support can contribute to better utilization of laboratory tests while achieving improvements in patient outcomes. At Decatur Memorial Hospital, use of CPOE helped physicians slash the volume…
Systems Approach For Pre-Authorization Of Genetic Tests
CEO Summary: Pre-authorization of expensive genetic and molecular tests is a threat to local clinical laboratories and pathology groups if payers exclude them from provider networks in favor of labs which bid the lowest prices. But one major healthcare corporation believes there …
Tough Financial Times Ahead for Hospital Labs
THIS YEAR’S MASSIVE HEALTH REFORM LEGISLATION has a ticking financial time bomb for hospital laboratories. Starting October 1, Medicare Part A hospital fees will be reduced by 0.4% for the federal fiscal year 2011. This is expected to reduce Medicare Part A spending by $440 million in 2011 compared…
Hospital Lab Evolves Into A Consultative Resource
CEO SUMMARY: Every laboratory recognizes it has the knowledge and expertise to become more of a consultative resource to its referring physicians. At 248-bed J.T. Mather Hospital in Port Jefferson, New York, the laboratory director took advantage of administration’s interest in improving …
Anticipate Access/Service Decline for S.D. Patients
CEO SUMMARY: In its primary push to use the Medicare Laboratory Competitive Bidding Demonstration Project as a tool to drive down the price Medicare pays for Part B laboratory testing services, CMS is giving secondary attention to patients’ needs. In particular, CMS seems to place littl…
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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