Jul 19, 2010 | Laboratory Hiring & Human Resources, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory Pathology
Plans are to centralize all cervical cancer screening in just two Alberta medical laboratories
Ongoing efforts to further consolidate clinical laboratory testing in the Canadian Province of Alberta caused local pathologists earlier this year to go on record to specifically oppose a proposed consolidation of Pap Smear testing. Over the past 15 years, the Alberta government has never been timid in its efforts to use consolidation of clinical pathology laboratory testing as a way to achieve cost savings.
During the past winter, more than 30 pathologists in Alberta signed letters to Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky to protest the consolidation of all the province’s Pap Smear testing into just two clinical laboratories—one in Edmonton and one in Calgary. As a result of the government’s decision to consolidate this medical laboratory testing service, cytology laboratories in Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Red Deer, and the University of Alberta Hospital would no longer perform Pap smear testing.
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Jun 4, 2010 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
Milestone achievement may lead to more sophisticated clinical laboratory tests
Now science can create synthetic life forms and J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., is the first to do it. The landmark feat, which involved building the genome of a bacterium from scratch and incorporating it into a cell, “paves the way for designer organisms that are built rather than evolved,” noted the author of an article in guardian.co.uk.
J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., best known to pathologists and clinical laboratory scientists for his role in sequencing the first human genome, achieved the feat at the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland. Venter and his team synthesized the 1.08 million base pair chromosome of a modified Mycoplasma mycoides genome. The synthetic cell, called Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0, is proof of the principle that genomes can be designed in the computer, chemically made in the laboratory, and transplanted into a recipient cell to produce a new self-replicating cell controlled by the synthetic genome. The experiment demonstrates how fast genetic technologies are advancing.
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May 28, 2010 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
Researchers use patient’s whole genome to predict his risk for 55 different health conditions
For pathologists, the day draws ever closer when they will use a patient’s whole genome sequence for diagnostic purposes. That’s the implication from research being done at the University of Stanford Medical School where scientists recently made a leap forward in advancing practical application of the human genome to patient care.
Stanford researchers recently announced that, for the first time, a healthy person’s complete DNA was sequenced, then used to create an easy-to-use, cumulative risk report. This study model could catapult patient genomic analysis into clinical laboratories even as it adds personalized medicine to the doctor’s black bag of diagnostic tools within the decade. The Stanford study team reported these findings in a recent issue of Lancet.
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May 19, 2010 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
Use of synthetic antibodies and a finger prick sample of blood could give clinical laboratories new tool to screen for breast cancer
A simple clinical pathology laboratory blood test for early detection of breast cancer may be just around the corner. At the University of Arkansas (UA), researchers are building a library of synthetic antibodies called affitoids that can be used to detect breast cancer in its earliest stage.
Researchers believe they are closing in on the creation of an assay that can rapidly validate proteins secreted by microscopic breast cancer cells. “We want to implement a rapid screen that is sensitive, highly accurate, non-invasive and inexpensive,” said Shannon Servoss, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at UA. “Such a test would be easy to use and applicable to women of all ages, races and ethnicities,” she said. “Hopefully we will be able to make the test sensitive enough so that only a finger prick [specimen] is needed.”
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Apr 13, 2010 | Coding, Billing, and Collections, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Management & Operations
With more and more consumers participating in high-deductible health plans, health savings accounts, and other forms of consumer-directed health plans, physicians and laboratories have to collect substantially more money from their patients. Collecting from patients while they are still in the physician’s office is the ideal situation, but must patients don’t know what their copayment, deductible, or out-of-pocket is for any given service. In many cases, that means that the physician must bill the insurer, wait weeks for a settlement, and then bill the patient for the balance. Patients are somewhat unlikely to pay a bill for services rendered in the distant past.
To help with the problem of in-office collection, Companion Technologies has created a card reader that accepts patients’ credit, debit, or insurance cards called Companion Direct POC. These small machines feature a keypad, a screen, and a printer that prints a patient receipt. The process works in 4 quick steps:
1. Run healthcare card through Companion Direct POC healthcare card reader and enter patient-specific information
2. Patient information sent to appropriate payer
3. Plan information and eligibility sent back in seconds
4. Print receipt and eligibility information directly from card reader
The systems are inexpensive, running about $20 per month plus a 20-cent per transaction fee. For this nominal fee, doctors can insure that a patient knows what s/he owes before s/he leaves the office.
On January 9, 2007, Companion Technologies was purchased from BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina and sold to The Thurston Group and ABRY Partners. Now that Companion Technologies has more financing than BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina was able to provide this small part of its operations, Dark Daily predicts that Companion Technologies will expand its promotion and implementation of real-time eligibility verification systems across the country at a rapid pace.
Laboratories can expect to be effected in a number of ways by the spread of real-time eligibility verification and real-time claims settlement. First, patients will become accustomed to eligibility verification/claims settlement services from physicians offices and will expect to see them in laboratories, as well. This means laboratories must be prepared to deal with patients on a cash basis, accepting cash, credit cards, and health debit cards. Second, laboratories and pathology groups should enjoy a better collection ratio for patient-billed services because of the real-time billing. Aspiring laboratories will make proactive responses to this trend and see it as an opportunity to create a competitive advantage, keep existing clients, and grab more market share.
Related Articles:
Thurston Group and ABRY Partners Purchase Companion Technologies Corporation
Payers Begin Speeding Up Payment to Physicians The Dark Report, November 2005
