TAG:
managed care plans
Price Discount Practices May Prove Troublesome
CEO SUMMARY: Some laboratories continue to offer deeply-discounted prices to the nation’s largest managed care plans as a way to maintain provider status and keep market share. In one case, these deep discounts surprised a long-time lab executive, who decided to share the information, a…
“Free Testing” Strategy Stirs the Pot in Tenn.
CEO SUMMARY: In Tennessee, the state’s Medicaid HMO plan has been at odds with Quest Diagnostics Incorporated, which is using the “free testing” strategy to expand its share of the market. In recent months, TennCare Select has taken active steps to insure its physicians understand tha…
“Waiver of Charges”: What Makes It Work
CEO SUMMARY: Little-used in the 1990s, when laboratory test ordering and billing practices were under intense scrutiny by federal regulators, the strategy of “free testing” is popping up in more regions around the country. To comply with compliance guidelines, labs using this strategy g…
Laboratories Sit Squarely Between New Genetics and Today’s Medicine
“Clinical laboratories and pathology groups are at the leading edge of the genetic revolution.” —Rick J. Carlson. CEO SUMMARY: Healthcare futurist Rick J. Carlson believes that knowledge of the human genome will trigger revolutionary…
Will “Free Testing” Ploy Financially Affect Labs?
CEO SUMMARY: It’s a marketing scheme which public lab companies have quietly used for years. Now there is evidence that the use of “Waiver of Charges to Managed Care Patients” (free testing) seems to be on the increase, raising new questions about how and why competitive practices a…
California Is Lab Industry’s Bellwether Again
IT’S NO COINCIDENCE THAT two recent lab industry developments are centered around lab companies in California. Repeatedly that state has proven to be a valuable bellwether of lab industry trends for the nation. On the lab regulatory front, state officials from the California Department of …
Michigan Lab Network Wins Major HMO Deal
CEO SUMMARY: By winning the contract for Health Alliance Plan (HAP), Joint Venture Hospital Laboratories (JVHL) captured another major exclusive managed care contract for lab testing services in Southeast Michigan. Its victory demonstrates that local hospital lab outreach programs can com…
FNA Clinic Business Becomes Part of Unilab
CEO SUMMARY: Pathology has a new business model entering the marketplace. The goal of FNA Clinics of America, Inc. is to offer patients speedy access to the FNA procedure and provide referring physicians with a final diagnosis within hours of the FNA procedure. Unilab Corporation recogniz…
DIANON Systems, United Health, Aetna, Quest Diagnostics, Orchid, AmeriPath
DIANON SYSTEMS INKS NATIONAL AGREEMENT WITH UNITEDHEALTHCARE A NEW NATIONAL AGREEMENT between DIANON Systems, Inc. and UnitedHealthcare was announced last week. The agreement allows DIANON Systems to provide pathology and genetic testing services to all the…
DIANON Acquires UroCor And Boosts Urology Share
CEO SUMMARY: Following years of intense competition for the diagnostic testing business of office-based urologists, DIANON Systems and UroCor will now join forces. The recently-announced merger creates a powerhouse anatomic pathology company in the urology-based diagnostics services marke…
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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