Clinical Lab 2.0 Workshop to Gather Healthcare Stakeholders for a Discussion of COVID-19 and How Medical Laboratories Can Add More Value

This fourth edition of the annual event will be held virtually with free registration for pathologists and clinical laboratory professionals In its fourth year, stakeholders in the clinical laboratory community have promoted thought leadership around the Lab Industry at the Project Santa Fe Foundation’s Clinical Lab 2.0 Workshop. Clinical Lab 2.0 (CL 2.0) which identifies new opportunities for medical labs to add value as the healthcare industry transitions from fee-for-service to value-based...

Whistleblower Lawsuit Alleges Massive Fraud in Cigna Medicare Advantage Plans

A former officer of a Cigna contractor claims the insurer hatched a scheme to submit invalid diagnostic codes and filed the now-unsealed qui tam action in 2017 In a case that could provide a cautionary tale for clinical laboratories, a federal whistleblower lawsuit alleges that Cigna, through its HealthSpring subsidiary, “received billions in overpayments from the federal government” in a scheme involving the insurer’s Medicare Advantage plans. The Qui tam (whistleblower) lawsuit was filed by...

Study of Cross-Contamination of Biopsy Specimens in 69 Anatomic Pathology Laboratories Raises Concerns about Test Quality and Patient Safety

Extraneous tissue cross-contamination found in all participating pathology laboratories Cross-tissue contamination, regardless of specimen volume or how frequently reagents were changed Pathologists and histotechnologists have long known that traditional methods of processing tissue for diagnosis have the potential to cross-contaminate human biopsy specimens. This risk to patient safety and diagnostic accuracy was accepted over the decades because of the limitations of technology and inability...

New Pathology Testing Device Enables Oncologists to Diagnose Cancer in One Hour at the Bedside with 96% Accuracy

Smartphone-based lab testing device could eliminate need to send biopsies to pathology laboratories For years, pathologists have wondered when technology would make it feasible to diagnose cancer at the patient’s beside. Eliminating the need for a traditional biopsy that goes off to the anatomic pathology laboratory, and requires 24 hours or more to process the tissue and evaluate the case. Now scientists at Harvard Medical School may be close to perfecting a device that can allow oncologists...
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