TAG:
laboratory tests
10% PAMA Fee Cut Would Lower Medicare Pay to Laboratories by $400 Million
CEO SUMMARY: Just eight weeks remain before certain clinical laboratories must begin submitting private payer lab test price data to the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. A new report …
BeaconLBS is coming to Texas
This is an excerpt from a 1,200-word article in the October 17 issue of THE DARK REPORT. The complete article is available for a limited time to all readers, and available at all times to paid members of the Dark Intelligence Group. …
How Reference Pricing Encourages Patients to Help Cut Cost of Care
USE OF REFERENCE PRICING by Safeway to lower the cost of clinical laboratory tests was the subject of a study published by JAMA Internal Medicine in July. In a special issue, THE DARK REPORT analyzed the study, which showed that reference-based pricing …
UnitedHealthcare to Bring BeaconLBS to Texas
CEO SUMMARY: With a quiet announcement this month that it was bringing its laboratory benefit management program to Texas on March 1, 2017, UnitedHealthcare is taking on a big challenge. Enrollment in UHC’s commercial plans in Texas is 4.3 million. That is twice the two million commerci…
Castlight Health’s Data Should Concern Lab Executives
CEO SUMMARY: Transparency tools, such as those from Castlight Health, help consumers see the significant variation in clinical laboratory test prices. In this analysis, THE DARK REPORT argues that lab executives and pathologists should recognize how two factors are poised to change the st…
Labs Caught Between Employer Hammer, Payer Anvil
STARTING ON JANUARY 1, 2017, THE CLINICAL LABORATORY INDUSTRY will undergo a new experiment in price-setting (and price-cutting) by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. On that date, certain labs must begin reporting market price data for each test and each payer…
Alert to All Labs: Beware Of ‘Reference Pricing’
CEO SUMMARY: “Reference pricing” does not refer to how a lab negotiates prices with its reference lab! Rather, reference pricing describes a specific approach to health plan benefits that incentivizes the consumer to choose lower-cost providers while allowing that consumer to still us…
Why Lab Prices Declined 32% During 3-Year Study
CEO SUMMARY: Researchers studied the effect reference pricing had on an employer’s efforts to steer consumers to low-cost clinical labs. The study showed that patients were particularly sensitive to lab test prices—in part because those prices varied widely. Over the course of the …
Reference Pricing’s New Lab Winners and Losers
CEO SUMMARY: Expanded use of reference pricing by employers in coming years could trigger a cycle of cuts to lab test prices that would put the most pressure on the lab companies with the highest prices. Many hospital labs are viewed as having high prices. But because they run outreach sp…
Lead Researcher Outlines New Details Of Laboratory Test Price Study
CEO SUMMARY: There is always a story behind the story, and THE DARK REPORT went to the lead researcher of the reference pricing study published in JAMA Internal Medicine to get it. In this interview, James C. Robinson, PhD, of the University of C…
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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