News, Analysis, Trends, Management Innovations for
Clinical Laboratories and Pathology Groups
Hosted by Robert Michel

News, Analysis, Trends, Management Innovations for
Clinical Laboratories and Pathology Groups
Hosted by Robert Michel
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Because of Sizeable Deductibles, More Patients Owe More Money to Clinical Pathology Laboratories, Spurring Labs to Get Smarter about Collecting from Patients

Jun 15, 2015 | Coding, Billing, and Collections, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Testing

One Arizona medical laboratory focused on collecting from patients who were overdue on amounts averaging just $40 and, in 18 months, collected $3.2 million!

In today’s clinical laboratory marketplace, competency in revenue management is becoming just as important as clinical excellence. Blame it on these multi-year trends: shrinking lab budgets, Medicare price cuts, and payers excluding labs from narrow networks.

At the dawn of this decade—just five years ago—few pathologists and clinical lab executives would have predicted that the financial survival of their lab organizations would depend upon becoming more proficient and more sophisticated with billing and collections. Yet this is now a necessary response to the year-over-year decline in lab prices and revenue experienced since 2010. (more…)

Hospitals Report Growing Levels of Bad Debt as Many Patients with High-Deductible Plans Are Unable to Pay Their Medical Bills

Sep 27, 2013 | Coding, Billing, and Collections, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology

Pathology groups and clinical laboratories should be taking steps to collect from patients at the point of care, as a key strategy to minimize patient bad debt

Here’s some bad news for hospital Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) and an early warning for clinical laboratory administrators. A rising number of patients with high deductible health plans (HDHPs) are unable to pay their medical bills.

Enrollment in HDHPs has soared in recent years because more employers and health insurers have adopted these plans. HDHPs also are called consumer-directed health plans (CDHPs) and typically have annual family deductibles of between $5,000 and $10,000. (more…)

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