May 14, 2021 | Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology
CMS says it is responding to hospitals’ plea for relief from burdensome reporting requirements, but not altering federal price transparency laws Despite federal price transparency law that went into effect January 1 after a year-long court battle, some hospitals continue to balk at sharing their payer-negotiated rates for healthcare goods and services—including medical laboratory testing—claiming a variety of challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccine distribution, and other...
Apr 30, 2021 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, News From Dark Daily
Clinical laboratories may see increase in flu and COVID-19 specimen processing as people return to pre-pandemic social behaviors, experts predict While SARS-CoV-2 infections continue to ravage many parts of the world, influenza (flu) cases in North America have hit a historic low. As winter approached last year, infectious disease experts warned of a “twindemic” in which the COVID-19 outbreak would combine with seasonal influenza to overwhelm the healthcare system. But this did not happen, and...
Apr 28, 2021 | Clinical Laboratory/Pathology Automation, Analyzers, Testing Systems, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Testing, News From Dark Daily
Federal regulators continue to recognize value of clinical laboratory testing in near-patient settings To help in the diagnosis and management of two sexually-transmitted diseases, another point-of-care diagnostic test will soon be available for use in physician’s offices, urgent care clinics, and other healthcare settings. The federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it granted a CLIA waiver for the binx health io CT/NG assay, a molecular platform used to detect sexually...
Apr 26, 2021 | Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Testing, Management & Operations
In a letter, Congress urged the HHS Secretary to conduct “vigorous oversight and enforces full compliance with the final rule” Analysis of more than 3,100 hospital websites by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has found “hundreds” containing embedded code that prevents search engines from displaying the hospitals’ prices. This is contrary to the Hospital Price Transparency Final Rule (84 FR 65524), passed in November 2019, which requires hospitals to “establish, update, and make public a list of...
Apr 19, 2021 | Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Testing, Management & Operations
A New York Times report suggests that frequent testing is still the best approach to controlling spread of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus Many colleges and universities go to great lengths to screen their students for signs of COVID-19 using technologies that include fever scanners, heart-rate monitors, and symptom-checking apps. But a recent report in The New York Times, titled, “Colleges That Require Virus-Screening Tech Struggle to Say Whether It Works,” suggests that academic institutions...
Apr 16, 2021 | Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Testing, Management & Operations, News From Dark Daily
But information blocking remains a barrier to complete information exchange, creating ongoing issues for clinical laboratories and pathology groups Interoperability of electronic health records (EHRs) remains one the biggest challenges for clinical laboratories and anatomic pathology groups that must interface with the EHRs of their physician clients to enable electronic transmission of medical laboratory orders and test results. Laboratory professionals will be pleased to know the most recent...
