Apr 24, 2009 | Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
Today in Renton, Washington, Valley Medical Center announced a new comprehensive contractual relationship involving medical laboratory services with PACLAB Network Laboratories of Bellevue, Washington. This is a significant development in the Greater Seattle market for several reasons.
First, it means that Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (NYSE:DGX) has lost another important hospital relationship in Greater Seattle, once again to PACLAB. It was back in December, 2003, when 244-bed Evergreen Hospital Medical Center of Kirkland, Washington, similarly terminated its comprehensive laboratory testing relationship with Quest Diagnostics and became part of the PACLAB regional laboratory network.
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Apr 14, 2009 | Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory Pathology
First-ever Gathering of Lab CFOs, Controllers to take place on April 28-29, 2009
News that the number of hospital jobs in the United States fell for the first time since June 2004 reveals several useful insights for clinical laboratory managers and pathologists. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that, for March 2008, the number of hospital jobs declined by 700, against a total hospital workforce of 4.71 million.
This small decline-less than one-tenth of one percent-demonstrates that demand for hospital services continues to be relatively resistant to economic declines. However, other Labor Bureau statistics highlight a darker picture for the long-term fortunes of hospitals. The entire healthcare sector picked up a net increase of 16,500 jobs, with most of this coming from the ambulatory services sector. For example, physicians’ offices added a net of 3,200 workers. By contrast, the overall U.S. economy shed 663,000 jobs in March, with the national unemployment rate ending the month at 8.5%.
As reflected in these numbers for March, hospital employment declined by a tick while overall employment in healthcare increased in spite of the economic recession. This illustrates two fundamental trends in healthcare. First, demand for health services during this recession remains robust enough that hospitals continue to need almost all their workers. Second, growth in outpatient demand for services continues to outstrip growth in demand for inpatient services.
To understand the implications of these trends on clinical laboratories and pathology laboratories, the first-ever national gathering of laboratory CFOs (chief financial officers), controllers, and financial experts is taking place in New Orleans on April 28-29, 2009 at the Executive War College on Laboratory and Pathology Management. This unique session will be led by Kurt Rogers, CFO of Pathology Associates Medical Laboratories (PAML) of Spokane, Washington. Access the full agenda with this agenda link.
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Mar 27, 2009 | Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology
Allegations of false claims implicate discounted client billing practices
It’s the first major whistleblower lawsuit in the laboratory industry in recent years. On March 20, California State Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. announced that his state had joined a qui tam lawsuit that alleges a number of laboratories have filed false claims on a “massive” scale, thus defrauding the California Medi-Cal program of “hundreds of millions of dollars.”
The unusual twist in this whistleblower lawsuit is that it was originally filed by the owner of a California-based laboratory. In 2005, Chris Reidel, owner and CEO of Hunter Laboratories, in Campbell, California, initiated the legal action, alleging what AG Brown characterized as “massive Medi-Cal fraud and kickbacks. Medi-Cal is the state’s Medicaid health program for the poor.
The original lawsuit filed by Reidel seeks to recover at least $100 million. However, one of his attorneys, Joe Cotchett, of the San Francisco-based law firm of Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, believes the state’s actual losses could be more than $1 billion. The lawsuit is pending in San Mateo Superior Court and was filed under seal in 2005.
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Mar 18, 2009 | Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory Pathology
Pathologists Discuss State of Genetic Testing at World Congress of Pathology
Dateline: Sydney, Australia- New-fangled technology is making genetic testing and molecular diagnostics ever more precise tools to aid clinicians, but at least two internationally-respected experts in genetics still consider family history to be a primary-if not the most useful-source of knowledge about a patient’s genetic risk factors. Both experts were in Sydney, Australia, to speak at the XXV World Congress of Pathology which took place on March 13-15, 2009.
“Family history remains the most valuable genetic test available to us today,” declared Michael S. Watson, Ph.D., Executive Director of the American College of Medical Genetics in Rockville, Maryland, in his presentation titled “Translation of Genetic Information into Healthcare Use.” He discussed the importance of building a multi-dimensional health record that included family history and would follow the patient from cradle to grave. (more…)
Oct 28, 2008 | Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory Pathology
Federal officials underestimated the costs and time needed to implement the complex new codes for ICD-10, according to a new study released last week on October 14. As a result, laboratories and physician groups can expect to incur significantly higher costs to convert from the current International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision (ICD-9), to ICD-10.
The report by Nachimson Advisors, LLC, estimated that every provider will incur conversion costs in at least six ways. The report detailed and projected these costs for physician groups of small, medium, and large. It calculated that the typical small group of three physicians would incur costs of $83,290 to comply with ICD-10. A typical medium-sized group of 10 physicians would spend $285,195, and a typical large physician practice of 100 providers would spend $2,728,780. These costs include expenses for: 1) education; 2) process analysis; 3) changes to superbills; 4) information technology; 5) documentation; and, 6) cash flow disruption. Detailed coverage of the impending conversion to ICD0-10 is provided in the current issue of The Dark Report that was published on October 20, 2008.
One large laboratory with operations nationwide estimated that it will spend about $40 million to convert to ICD-10, including costs for information technology and staff education. This national lab further stated that implementation of ICD-10 code sets is projected to be twice as expensive as implementing the National Provider Identification (NPI) system that caused severe cash-flow problems for labs earlier this year.
A group of organizations representing physicians and laboratories, including the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Clinical Laboratory Association (ACLA), commissioned the report. The deadline for compliance with ICD-10 is October 1, 2011, but physician trade groups are lobbying Congress to order the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to delay implementation. One reason the conversion is complicated is because ICD-10 uses 155,000 seven-digit codes, compared to the existing 17,000 codes in ICD0-9. Conversion will be particularly complex for laboratories because of the extensive system changes and the need to train not only staff, but the physicians who refer specimens to the laboratory.
“We have known this transition was going to be a big problem for a few years,” said ACLA President Alan Mertz. “The Nachimson study confirms that belief. ACLA has also consulted with our members and some of the larger labs tell us the costs for transitioning to the new codes and then the ongoing costs to use the new codes will be quite high. It will be costly for lab billing personnel to have to go back to the referring physicians to get the right diagnosis codes.”
Joseph M. Heyman, M.D., Board Chair of the AMA, said, “The AMA is deeply concerned that HHS is rushing head-first into the transition to a complex coding system without fully recognizing the impact on the health care system. Physicians, insurers, medical labs and others are raising the alarm that the costs, documentation and training required by ICD-10 will be significantly greater than HHS now recognizes.”
Medical laboratories and pathology group practices will need to develop a strategy for handling the transition from ICD-9 to ICD-10. Although providers are already pressuring federal health policymakers to delay the October 1, 2011 implementation date for ICD-10, there are many reasons why the United States must move to ICD-10. These reasons are detailed in current issue of The Dark Report.
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