Oct 6, 2014 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations
The challenge facing medical lab managers and pathologists is to intelligently cut costs in their labs without laying off med techs, histotechs, and other lab scientists
By any measure, this year’s budget season is a tough one for the nation’s clinical laboratories and pathology groups. Most labs are scrambling to adjust to reduced reimbursement and directives from their parent hospitals and health systems to shrink their lab budgets for 2015.
It’s why smart cost-cutting tops the list of challenges at all medical laboratory managers and pathologists. Lab leaders need effective approaches to trim spending in their lab without the need to lay off skilled medical technologists and other experienced lab scientists. (more…)
Sep 8, 2014 | Coding, Billing, and Collections, Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Hiring & Human Resources, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, News From Dark Daily
Blame it on shrinking hospital budgets and reduced lab testing prices; successful labs are using Lean, Six Sigma, and process improvement to reduce expenses and boost quality
Topic number one at clinical laboratories and anatomic pathology groups across the nation is cost-cutting, for two reasons. First, it is budget time at hospitals and labs are being told to aggressively reduce their costs in 2015. Second, health insurers are paying less for medical lab testing.
Simply said, labs are experiencing one of the toughest financial squeezes in two decades. Dark Daily has written about the underlying trends responsible for this financial pressure. Nationally, hospital inpatient admissions are down at the same time that hospitals are being paid less per inpatient. In response, hospitals are asking all clinical departments—including their clinical laboratories—to prune staff and cut budgets for 2015. (more…)
Sep 4, 2013 | Coding, Billing, and Collections, Digital Pathology, Laboratory Hiring & Human Resources, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations, News From Dark Daily
As medical laboratories struggle to reduce costs and squeeze their budgets, it is essential that the lab’s quality assurance/quality control program is run properly to protect and enhance the analytical integrity of lab test results
When does budget cutting in a clinical laboratory begin to undermine the accuracy and analytical integrity of the medical laboratory test results produced by the laboratory?
This question is apparently a subject of much discussion within some lab organizations where aggressive cost reduction programs are shrinking lab staff and reducing funds spent on controls and similar QA/QC resources.
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Aug 28, 2013 | Coding, Billing, and Collections, Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory Hiring & Human Resources, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Sales and Marketing, Managed Care Contracts & Payer Reimbursement, Management & Operations, News From Dark Daily
In today’s tough financial environment, medical laboratories with effective Lean and Six Sigma improvement programs are showing the best financial performance
When Dark Daily wrote about how cost-cutting is now a major clinical laboratory industry trend last Wednesday, publication of that ebriefing triggered a flow of emails and commentary from readers far and wide.
Pathologists and medical laboratory managers who read Dark Daily tell us that they are facing painful decisions about where to cut. This is particularly true when labs cut expenses by reducing staff, laying off FTEs. This approach brings much emotional pain—along with the loss of valuable technical skills and extensive organizational experience that cannot be easily replaced.
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