Hit by Lower Lab Test Prices, Nation’s Clinical Pathology Laboratories Embark on Cost-Cutting Programs
Many hospital outreach lab programs are dealing with the double whammy of successive reductions in Medicare Part B Clinical Laboratory Test fees and a shrinking budget by their parent hospitals
Over the past 24 months, all the painful cuts to lab test prices have made depressing news. These decreases in the prices paid to clinical laboratories by the Medicare program and major private health insurers mean that labs in 2014 will have significantly less revenue, even as the volume of specimens to be tested increases.
The logical response by many medical laboratory organizations has been to take active steps to decrease expenses. In fact, the price and revenue erosion experienced by labs of all sizes and types over the past two years is the reason why cutting unnecessary costs is now a primary management goal at clinical laboratories throughout the United States. (more…)
