Apr 7, 2017 | Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Testing, Management & Operations
Medical laboratories now taking the steps to deliver patient-centric lab testing services report solid successes in improving patient/physician satisfaction, increasing lab revenue, and gaining more network access
Evidence is accumulating that “patient-centric” medical laboratory testing services are poised to become one of the most important new paradigms to reshape the house of pathology and clinical laboratory medicine in decades. Better yet, patient-centric lab services will earn more revenue for those labs that move fastest to incorporate these capabilities into their service mix.
“The paradigm of patient-center lab testing services couldn’t come at a better time for the clinical laboratory industry. Most labs are reeling from what is now nearly a full decade of successive and painful reductions in lab test prices and lab budgets,” observed Robert Michel, Editor-in-Chief of The Dark Report, which is Dark Daily’s sister publication. “After years of aggressive cost-cutting, most labs are down to the bare essentials and staff is overworked. That is why there is an urgent need for an operational and clinical strategy that will earn more payment from payers. (more…)
Feb 20, 2017 | Laboratory Hiring & Human Resources, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Sales and Marketing
Pathologists and clinical laboratory managers may be overlooking ways that sales teams can add strategic value
As of January 1, 2018, the value of a top-performing clinical laboratory sales professional will increase because, on that date, labs will see a reduction in Medicare Part B clinical laboratory test prices as mandated by the Protecting Access to Medicare Act (PAMA) of 2014.
As these Medicare price cuts become effective, clinical laboratories and hospital lab outreach programs across the United States will need their lab sales representatives to bring in new client accounts that can generate additional revenue to offset the decrease in Medicare lab test reimbursements.
It was to recognize these laboratory sales professionals that The Dark Report organized the National Lab Sales Excellence Award in 2016. These new national sales awards were unveiled at the Executive War College (EWC) in New Orleans on April 26-27, 2016, and will return again at the 2017 EWC May 2-3. (more…)
Dec 7, 2016 | Coding, Billing, and Collections, Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Uncategorized
Big data offers new opportunities for healthcare providers, clinical laboratories, and pathology groups, and this new alliance hopes to accelerate big data capabilities
Big data has the potential to deliver unprecedented insight into optimizing the patient care experience and managing outcomes for healthcare providers. That is particularly true for clinical laboratories, and pathology groups. Yet, with the sheer amount of data generated by today’s ever-expanding menus of diagnostic procedures, communicating this data between systems and analyzing data at high-levels still presents challenges.
To help healthcare organizations jumpstart their Big Data programs, key stakeholders are joining forces. One such alliance involves Siemens Healthineers and IBM Watson Health. In an October 2016 press release, the two organizations announced a five-year global strategic alliance aimed at helping healthcare professionals optimize value-based care that leverages increasingly complex data collected for use in precision medicine.
What should intrigue pathologists and medical laboratory managers about this new alliance is the fact that Siemens Healthineers owns two of the world’s largest businesses in radiology/imaging and in vitro (IVD). Thus, it can be expected that the alliance will be looking to identify ways to combine radiology data with clinical laboratory data that produce knowledge that can be applied to clinical care. (more…)
Dec 5, 2016 | Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations
Last week involved a full slate of pathology meetings and medical laboratory site visits on both islands of New Zealand during Dark Daily’s visit to this Pacific nation
DATELINE: CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND—There’s a good case to be made that the health system in this South Pacific nation is farther down the path of medical laboratory regionalization and consolidation than most other developed nations.
That’s one insight to be gleaned from a week’s worth of meetings with pathologists, clinical laboratory professionals, and health system administrators in the cities of Auckland on the North Island and Christchurch on the east coast of New Zealand’s South Island. Your Dark Daily Editor, Robert Michel, had the opportunity to speak at several conferences and workshops, along with visits to medical laboratories.
A note of explanation about nomenclature will be helpful to Dark Daily’s international readers. In Australia and New Zealand, “pathology laboratory” is the common term for the medical laboratories that typically test blood, urine, saliva, and similar specimens. (In the United States and Canada, “clinical laboratory” is used interchangeably with medical laboratory.) “Histopathology” (or anatomic pathology) is the common term for labs that handle tissue specimens in New Zealand and Australia. (In North America, anatomic pathology, or surgical pathology laboratory is used more frequently than histopathology.) (more…)
Nov 14, 2016 | Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations
All hospital laboratories will be part of these programs, and it is an opportunity for medical laboratory professionals to deliver considerable value, as hospitals take steps to improve the utilization of antibiotics
Clinical laboratories and pharmacies in the nation’s hospitals and health systems have a huge opportunity to deliver substantial value in patient care. That’s because, at the start of 2017, hospitals must put effective antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASPs) in place to meet the new accreditation requirements of Medicare and The Joint Commission.
Overuse and inappropriate use of antibiotics is now considered one of the biggest problems in medicine. “Antibiotics are lifesaving drugs, and if we continue down the road of inappropriate use we’ll lose the most powerful tool we have to fight life-threatening infections,” stated Tom Frieden, MD, MPH, Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Administrator, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), in a press release issued by the CDC last May. “Losing these antibiotics would undermine our ability to treat patients [who have] deadly infections, cancer, provide organ transplants, and save victims of burns and trauma.”
Much publicity is devoted to the rise of the increase of antibiotic-resistant organisms. In recognition of this problem, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and The Joint Commission (TJC), took steps to add antimicrobial stewardship program requirements to their respective hospital accreditation programs. (more…)
