Clinical Laboratory Tests as a Commodity: Why Government Health Programs Won’t Spend More
Speakers from the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada provide useful prospectives
Too often, pathology laboratory testing is treated as a commodity by government health officials in the United States and other countries. But treating lab testing as a commodity has negative long-term consequences for health systems which try to pay the cheapest price for medical laboratory testing.
As pathologists and clinical laboratory managers know all too well, clinical pathology laboratory testing delivers incredible value when physicians order the right test and do the appropriate thing with the lab test results. Examples abound where proper use of laboratory testing contributes to improved patient outcomes while reducing the overall cost per episode of care.
