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. 10 – July 22, 2019 issue
CEO SUMMARY: For all laboratories that must report private payer price data under the Protecting Access to Medicare Act (PAMA), a new bill in congress would delay the next round of data reporting for one year and require the National Academy of Medicine to recommend ways to improve the data collection and market-rate setting processes
By Joseph Burns, from the Volume XXVI No. 9 – July 1, 2019 issue
CEO SUMMARY: Organizations developing blockchain technology say it is a tamper-proof method of sharing data across networks and among providers, health insurers, and health systems. The Synaptic Health Alliance includes four of the largest health insurers, a health network, and Quest Diagnostics. Its first project, now in its second year, will use blockchain to create
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
By Mary Van Doren, from the Volume XXVI No. 7 – May 20, 2019 issue
This is an excerpt from a 3,380-word article in the May 20, 2019 issue of THE DARK REPORT. The full article is available to members of The Dark Intelligence Group.
CEO SUMMARY: To develop new sources of revenue to offset declining fee-for-service payments, TriCore Reference Labs is collaborating with health insurers in novel ways to improve patient
By Joseph Burns, from the Volume XXVI No. 7 – May 20, 2019 issue
CEO SUMMARY: To develop new sources of revenue to offset declining fee-for-service payments, TriCore Reference Labs is collaborating with health insurers in novel ways to improve patient outcomes and lower healthcare costs. To achieve this, TriCore brings together data from lab tests, EHRs, patient demographics, and geography. Analytical tools allow it to assess population health
By Robert Michel, from the Volume XXVI No. 7 – May 20, 2019 issue
CEO SUMMARY: There was an interesting consensus that emerged from the 80 sessions and 118 speakers at this year’s Executive War College in New Orleans earlier this month. The consensus centered around two themes. One theme is disruption, which is bad news for those labs that hope to maintain the status quo. The other theme
By Mary Van Doren, from the Volume XXVI No. 5 – April 8, 2019 issue
This is an excerpt from a 1,550-word article in the April 8, 2019 issue of THE DARK REPORT. The full article is available to members of The Dark Intelligence Group.
CEO SUMMARY: For two years, clinical lab professionals at WakeMed Health and Hospitals have tested the use of aerial drones to transport patient specimens from a
By Joseph Burns, from the Volume XXVI No. 5 – April 8, 2019 issue
CEO SUMMARY: For two years, clinical lab professionals at WakeMed Health and Hospitals have tested the use of aerial drones to transport patient specimens from a physicians’ office satellite lab/draw station to the WakeMed Medical Center’s central lab. Late last month, they completed the first successful revenue-generating commercial transport of lab supplies by drone in
By Joseph Burns, from the Volume XXVI No. 4 – March 18, 2019 issue
CEO SUMMARY: In Florida, the Blue Cross Blue Shield contract is coming up for renewal and the question is whether it will renew as exclusive to one national lab company. But Florida is not the only state where BCBS plans are planning to issue new contracts. Among the Blues plans that may ask for proposals
