By Joseph Burns, from the Volume XXVII No. 1 – January 6, 2020 issue
CEO SUMMARY: Among hospital administrators, the popular wisdom is that their clinical lab is a cost center. This thinking leads them to consider drastic cost-management strategies that include partnering with commercial labs to manage in-hospital lab testing and the outright sale of lab outreach programs. On the other side of this debate, innovative health system
By R. Lewis Dark, from the Volume XXVI No. 17 – December 16, 2019 issue
Is it a coincidence that a number of uninsured consumers filed separate lawsuits in federal courts against Laboratory Corporation of America and Quest Diagnostics—alleging, in both cases, that they were overcharged for clinical laboratory tests—just months before the federal government published final rules requiring hospitals and other providers to publish their prices?
Last month, the federal Centers
By Joseph Burns, from the Volume XXVI No. 16 – November 25, 2019 issue
CEO SUMMARY: Evidence shows that adoption of ICD-10 diagnosis codes in 2015 made it possible for health insurers to track clinical laboratory testing more closely, ask more questions about those tests, and deny coverage. Increased detail about each patient’s condition has led to increased demands for medical-necessity documentation and to denied payments of as much
This is an excerpt of a 1,484-word article in the Nov. 25, 2019 issue of THE DARK REPORT (TDR). The full article is available to members of The Dark Intelligence Group.
CEO SUMMARY: It’s an unreported trend tracked only by THE DARK REPORT, but which is essential reading for clinical labs and pathology groups that must
By Joseph Burns, from the Volume XXVI No. 13 – September 23, 2019 issue
CEO SUMMARY: When developing a program to identify and treat patients who misused opioids or needed chronic opioid therapy, Community Health Network (CHN) of Indianapolis recognized that clinical lab toxicology tests were one of the few sources of objective data about patient compliance. When CHN developed its Chronic Opioid Therapy (COT) program, protocols were included that
By R. Lewis Dark, from the Volume XXVI No. 13 – September 23, 2019 issue
IT’S CALLED THE OPIOD CRISIS AND IT’S OFTEN A MAJOR STORY in the nightly news. In 2017, deaths from drug overdoses totaled 70,237, of which 68% (47,600) were opioid overdose deaths, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Across the nation, government health officials and healthcare providers struggle to address the problems of opioid
By Mary Van Doren, from the Volume XXVI No. 13 – September 23, 2019 issue
This is an excerpt of a 2,883-word article in the Sept. 23, 2019 issue of THE DARK REPORT (TDR). The full article is available to members of The Dark Intelligence Group.
CEO SUMMARY: In this first industry briefing on such a program, THE DARK REPORT explains that Community Health Network (CHN) of Indianapolis recognized that clinical
By Joseph Burns, from the Volume XXVI No. 11 – August 12, 2019 issue
IT’S OFFICIAL! A YEAR-LONG COLLABORATION involving a health insurer, a clinical laboratory, and an analytics company showed that insurers and physicians can use clinically-actionable intelligence developed from medical lab test data to improve patient outcomes.
This important accomplishment in patient care comes with another significant milestone: The health insurer is paying the lab outside of the
By Joseph Burns, from the Volume XXVI No. 8 – June 10, 2019 issue
CEO SUMMARY: It may be without precedent in the clinical lab industry that a laid-off lab manager launches a nonprofit mobile phlebotomy service in order to continue services to homebound patients, nursing homes, and long-term care facilities. The events in the Quad Cities of Moline, Ill. and Davenport, Iowa, are also the most recent example
By Joseph Burns, from the Volume XXVI No. 8 – June 10, 2019 issue
CEO SUMMARY: Today, insurers get risk-adjusted payments for treating patients who have high-cost health conditions and they make risk-adjusted payments to physicians, hospitals, and other providers. At Northwell Health, the clinical lab saw the opportunity to leverage lab test data with other clinical and demographic data to identify patients who were undiagnosed or whose conditions were
