Sessions at this annual medical laboratory conference demonstrated that lab outreach continues to be a productive clinical and business line at numerous hospitals and IDNs
Sept. 26-Chicago: During the past 24 months, there have been multiple news stories announcing that different hospitals or integrated delivery networks (IDNs) had signed agreements to sell their clinical laboratory outreach businesses to one of the two multi-billion-dollar commercial lab corporations. Some Wall Street analysts have taken these lab outreach acquisitions as a sign that hospitals are struggling to compete in the outreach laboratory marketplace. They predict that the big commercial labs will continue to scoop up hospital laboratory outreach businesses at a brisk pace.
However, this may be an example of popular wisdom not reflecting the true state of the outpatient/outreach market for clinical laboratory testing services. Evidence of the contrary view—that many hospitals and IDNs have flourishing lab outreach programs—was in plain view last week here in the Windy City.
During last week’s “Leveraging the Laboratory” outreach conference in Chicago, produced by Mayo Clinic Laboratories, the individuals pictured above each presented different aspects of success in operating an effective hospital clinical laboratory outreach program. Front row top to bottom they are Henry Givray, Leadership’s Calling; Brianne Newton, Mayo Clinic Laboratories; Nilesh Kachalia, Yuma Medical Center; Trudie Milner, PhD, Yuma Regional Medical Center. And rear row top to bottom: Robert Michel, The Dark Report; Tony Bull, Medical University of South Carolina; Nicholas Rambow, Corewell Health; Jane Hermansen, Mayo Clinic Laboratories; Ellen Dijkman Dulkes, Mayo Clinic Laboratories. (Photo copyright: The Dark Report.)
Optimism was High at Mayo’s Lab Outreach Conference
Throughout the two days of the conference, there was enthusiasm for the viability of hospital laboratory outreach programs. There was also optimism that these local and regional outreach businesses will continue to be profitable and can support better patient care. Had any of the Wall Street analysts been in attendance, they would have heard the other side of the coin about the profitability and viability of hospital laboratory outreach programs—a story documented by the presentations of different hospital and IDNs that operate flourishing lab outreach programs.
“What makes this meeting unique is that it is the longest-running and biggest conference devoted to best practices in hospital and health system laboratory outreach programs,” said Jane Hermansen, Manager, Outreach and Network Development at Mayo Clinic Laboratories. “There are signs that increased integration within multi-hospital health systems requires a common lab test menu with consistent methodologies and reference ranges.
“During the conference, we heard many participants describe one part of their lab testing services to office-based physicians as ‘inreach’ when it involves employed providers of the parent health system,” she continued. “This is evidence that health system administration recognizes the value of a full longitudinal lab test record for their patients—whether from inpatient, inreach, or outreach testing.
“As well, this year’s exceptionally large attendance shows that hospital-based labs across the United States are forging ahead with their lab outreach services in ways that generate many benefits,” Hermansen noted. “The most important is to help physicians deliver better care to patients. At the same time, the added test volumes from a productive hospital laboratory outreach program improves the productivity of the laboratory while generating much needed income that helps that lab’s parent organization.”
Day one of this two-day event featured presentations about successful hospital laboratory outreach programs. Speakers included:
Day two was organized around hands-on workshops that addressed the management, operational, financial, and sales/marketing elements that make up a growing, dynamic hospital laboratory outreach business. Attendees were fully engaged in these sessions as they learned best practices. Innovations and clever approaches to increasing physician and patient satisfaction were shared during peer-to-peer exchanges.
Local Clinical Laboratories Serving their Communities
Hospital laboratories are uniquely positioned to deliver value to the physicians and other providers in the towns and regions they served. The obvious benefit is that the lab, its employees, and its clinical pathologists all live in the community. They have professional relationships that may go back decades with the physicians who order medical laboratory tests for their patients.
These local hospital labs can report many test results on the same day that they get the specimens from the doctors’ offices. Another benefit for those physicians and patients is that when a hospital lab performs all the tests originated in inpatient, outreach, and outpatient settings, it has a full longitudinal record of a patient’s lab test results, which often covers years of testing. This is important when patients show up in specialists’ offices or hospital emergency departments. Physicians in these settings can see all of the patient’s lab test history, and the tests are performed with the same methodology and have the same reference ranges.
Ways to Differentiate Hospital Laboratory Outreach Services
Hospital and health system laboratory outreach programs have multiple ways to differentiate their lab testing services. During his presentation, Tony Bull, System Administrative Officer, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina, provided the following list of different benefits that a lab outreach program can offer to local physicians, patients, and consumers:
Ease of access
Patient experience
Couriers
Pricing
Payer contracts
Customer service
Marketing and sales
Physician perception
One point of competitive advantage the speakers emphasized was the outreach laboratory’s access to lab test data. When lab data is combined with patient demographics and other sets of data, an outreach laboratory can develop clinically actionable intelligence that helps physicians and health insurers improve patient care, while lowering the total cost of care. When packaged correctly, these enriched data offerings can generate a new source of revenue for lab outreach programs.
Given the tough finances experienced by health systems and hospitals across the United States in recent years, it’s notable that the attendees at Mayo Clinic Laboratories’ “Leveraging the Laboratory” conference reported positive growth and profitable results from their laboratory outreach programs.
That’s solid evidence that there continues to be an opportunity for pathologists and clinical laboratory leaders of IDNs to ramp up their laboratory outreach businesses to win new client-physicians and produce additional cash flow for their labs.
The speakers also noted that labs must learn to work collaboratively with payers—perhaps through health information technology (HIT)—to establish best practices that improve reimbursements on claims for novel genetic tests.
Harnessing the ever-increasing volume of diagnostic data that genetic testing produces should be a high priority for labs, said William Morice II, MD, PhD, CEO and President of Mayo Clinic Laboratories.
“There will be an increased focus on getting information within the laboratory … for areas such as genomics and proteomics,” Morice told the keynote audience at the Executive War College on Wednesday.
“Wearable technology data is analyzed using machine learning. Clinical laboratories must participate in analyzing that spectrum of diagnostics,” said William Morice II, MD, PhD (above), CEO and President of Mayo Clinic Laboratories. Morice spoke during this week’s Executive War College.
Precision Medicine Efforts Include Genetic Testing and Wearable Devices
For laboratories new to genetic testing that want to move it in-house, Morice outlined effective first steps to take, including the following:
Determine and then analyze the volume of genetic testing that a lab is sending out.
Research and evaluate genetic sequencing platforms that are on the market, with an eye towards affordable cloud-based options.
Build a business case to conduct genetic tests in-house that focuses on the long-term value to patients and how that could also improve revenue.
A related area for clinical laboratories and pathology practices to explore is their role in how clinicians treat patients using wearable technology.
For example, according to Morice, Mayo Clinic has monitored 20,000 cardiac patients with wearable devices. The data from the wearable devices—which includes diagnostic information—is analyzed using machine learning, a subset of artificial intelligence.
In one study published in Scientific Reports, scientists from Mayo’s Departments of Neurology and Biomedical Engineering found “clear evidence that direct seizure forecasts are possible using wearable devices in the ambulatory setting for many patients with epilepsy.”
Clinical laboratories fit into this picture, Morice explained. For example, depending on what data it provides, a wearable device on a patient with worsening neurological symptoms could trigger a lab test for Alzheimer’s disease or other neurological disorders.
“This will change how labs think about access to care,” he noted.
For Payers, Navigating Genetic Testing Claims is Difficult
While there is promise in genetic testing and precision medicine, from an administrative viewpoint, these activities can be challenging for payers when it comes to verifying reimbursement claims.
“One of the biggest challenges we face is determining what test is being ordered. From the perspective of the reimbursement process, it’s not always clear,” said Cristi Radford, MS, CGC, Product Director at healthcare services provider Optum, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, located in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Radford also presented a keynote at this year’s Executive War College.
Approximately 400 Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes are in place to represent the estimated 175,000 genetic tests on the market, Radford noted. That creates a dilemma for labs and payers in assigning codes to novel genetic tests.
During her keynote address, Radford showed the audience of laboratory executives a slide that charted how four labs submitted claims for the same high-risk breast cancer panel. CPT code choices varied greatly.
“Does the payer have any idea which test was ordered? No,” she said. “It was a genetic panel, but the information doesn’t give us the specificity payers need.”
In such situations, payers resort to prior authorization to halt these types of claims on the front end so that more diagnostic information can be provided.
“Plans don’t like prior authorization, but it’s a necessary evil,” said Jason Bush, PhD, Executive Vice President of Product at Avalon Healthcare Solutions in Tampa, Florida. Bush co-presented with Radford.
[Editor’s note: Dark Daily offers a free webinar, “Learning from Payer Behavior to Increase Appeal Success,” that teaches labs how to better understand payer behavior. The webinar features recent trends in denials and appeals by payers that will help diagnostic organizations maximize their appeal success. Click here to stream this important webinar.]
Payers Struggle with ‘Explosion’ of Genetic Tests
In “UnitedHealth’s Optum to Offer Lab Test Management,” Dark Daily’s sister publication The Dark Report, covered Optum’s announcement that it had launched “a comprehensive laboratory benefit management solution designed to help health plans reduce unnecessary lab testing and ensure their members receive appropriate, high-quality tests.”
Optum sells this laboratory benefit management program to other health plans and self-insured employers. Genetic test management capabilities are part of that offering.
As part of its lab management benefit program, Optum is collaborating with Avalon on a new platform for genetic testing that will launch soon and focus on identifying test quality, streamlining prior authorization, and providing test payment accuracy in advance.
“Payers are struggling with the explosion in genetic testing,” Bush told Executive War College attendees. “They are truly not trying to hinder innovation.”
For clinical laboratory leaders reading this ebriefing, the takeaway is twofold: Genetic testing and resulting precision medicine efforts provide hope in more effectively treating patients. At the same time, the genetic test juggernaut has grown so large so quickly payers are finding it difficult to manage. Thus, it has become a source of continuous challenge for labs seeking reimbursements.
Heath information technology may help ease the situation. But, ultimately, stronger communication between labs and payers—including acknowledgement of what each side needs from a business perspective—is paramount.
Executives and pathologists from many of the nation’s most prominent clinical laboratories are on their way to the Crescent City today to share best practices, hear case studies from innovative labs, and network
NEW ORLEANS—This afternoon, more than 900 lab CEOs, administrators, and pathologists will convene for the 28th Annual Executive War College on Diagnostics, Clinical Laboratory, and Pathology Management conference. Three topics of great interest will center around adequate lab staffing, effective cost management, and developing new sources of lab testing revenue.
Important sessions will also address the explosion in next-generation sequencing and genetic testing, proposed FDA regulation of laboratory-developed tests (LDTs), and innovative ways that clinical laboratories and pathology groups can add value and be paid for that additional value.
All this is happening amidst important changes to healthcare and medicine in the United States. “Today, the US healthcare system is transforming itself at a steady pace,” explained Robert L. Michel, Editor-in-Chief of The Dark Report and Founder of the Executive War College. “Big multi-hospital health systems are merging with each other, and payers are slashing reimbursement for many medical lab tests, even as healthcare consumers want direct access to clinical laboratory tests and the full record of their lab test history.
“Each of these developments has major implications in how clinical laboratories serve their parent organizations, offer services directly to consumers, and negotiate with payers for fair reimbursement as in-network providers,” Michel added. “Attending the Executive War College on Diagnostics, Clinical Laboratory, and Pathology Management equips lab leaders with the tools they’ll need to make smart decisions during these challenging times.”
Now in its 28th year, the Executive War College on Diagnostics, Clinical Laboratory, and Pathology Management convenes April 25-26 in New Orleans. Executive War College extends to a third day with three full-day workshops: LEAN fundamentals for lab leaders, a genetic testing program track, and a digital pathology track. Learn more at www.ExecutiveWarCollege.com. (Photo copyright: The Dark Intelligence Group.)
Challenges and Opportunities for Clinical Laboratories
With major changes unfolding in the delivery and reimbursement of clinical services, clinical laboratory and pathology practice leaders need effective ways to respond to the evolving needs of physicians, patients, and payers. As The Dark Report has often covered, three overlapping areas are a source of tension and financial pressure for labs:
Day-to-day pressures to manage costs in the clinical laboratory or pathology practice.
The growing demand for genetic testing, accompanied by reimbursement challenges.
Evolving consumer expectations in how they receive medical care and interact with providers.
Addressing all three issues and much more, the 2023 Executive War College on Diagnostics, Clinical Laboratory, and Pathology Management features more than 80 sessions with up to 125 lab managers, consultants, vendors, and in vitro diagnostic (IVD) experts as speakers and panelists.
Old-School Lab Rules Have Evolved into New-School Lab Rules
Tuesday’s keynote general sessions (to be reported exclusively in Wednesday’s Dark Daily ebriefing) will include four points of interest for clinical laboratory and pathology leaders who are managing change and pursuing new opportunities:
Positioning the lab to prosper by serving healthcare’s new consumers, new care models, new payment models, and more, with Michel at the podium.
How old-school lab rules have evolved into new-school lab rules and ways to transition the lab through today’s disrupters in healthcare and the clinical laboratory marketplace, with Stan Schofield, Managing Principal of the Compass Group.
Generating value by identifying risk signals in longitudinal lab data and opportunities in big data from payers, physicians, pharma, and bioresearch, with Brad Bostic, Chairman and CEO of hc1.
Wednesday’s keynote sessions (see exclusive insights in Friday’s Dark Daily ebriefing) explore:
Wednesday’s keynotes conclude with a panel discussion on delivering value to physicians, patients, and payers with lab testing services.
Clinical Labs, Payers, and Health Plans Swamped by Genetic Test Claims
Attendees of the 2023 Executive War College on Diagnostics, Clinical Laboratory, and Pathology Management may notice a greater emphasis on whole genome sequencing and genetic testing this year.
As regular coverage and analysis in The Dark Report has pointed out, clinical laboratories, payers, and health plans face challenges with the explosion of genetic testing. Several Executive War College Master Classes will explore critical management issues of genetic and genomic testing, including laboratory benefit management programs, coverage decisions, payer relations, and best coding practices, as well as genetic test stewardship.
This year’s Executive War College also devotes a one-day intensive session on how community hospitals and local labs can set up and offer genetic tests and next-generation sequencing services. This third-day track features more than a dozen experts including:
During these sessions, attendees will be introduced to “dry labs” and “virtual CLIA labs.” These new terms differentiate the two organizations that process genetic data generated by “wet labs,” annotate it, and provide analysis and interpretation for referring physicians.
State of the Industry: Clinical Lab, Private Practice Pathology, Genetic Testing, IVD, and More
For lab consultants, executives, and directors interested in state-of-the-industry Q/A and discussions concerning commercial laboratories, private-practice pathology, and in vitro diagnostics companies, a range of breakout sessions, panels, and roundtables will cover:
Action steps to protect pathologists’ income and boost practice revenue.
Important developments in laboratory legal, regulatory, and compliance requirements.
New developments in clinical laboratory certification and accreditation, including the most common deficiencies and how to reach “assessment ready” status.
An update on the IVD industry and what’s working in today’s post-pandemic market for lab vendors and their customers.
Federal government updates on issues of concern to clinical laboratories, including PAMA, the VALID Act, and more.
Long-time attendees will notice the inclusion of “Diagnostics” into the Executive War College moniker. It’s an important addition, Michel explained for Dark Daily.
“In the recent past, ‘clinical laboratory’ and ‘anatomic pathology’ were terms that sufficiently described the profession of laboratory medicine,” he noted. “However, a subtle but significant change has occurred in recent years. The term ‘diagnostics’ has become a common description for medical testing, along with other diagnostic areas such as radiology and imaging.”
Key managers of medical laboratories, pathology groups, and in vitro diagnostics have much to gain from attending the Executive War College on Diagnostics, Clinical Laboratory, and Pathology Management, now in its 28th year. Look for continued coverage through social media channels, at Dark Daily, and in The Dark Report.
Organizations representing clinical laboratories and other critical healthcare providers urged Congress to pass the Saving Access to Laboratory Services Act by January 1, 2023, to prevent deep cuts in reimbursements
Lessons about the essential role of clinical laboratories during a pandemic was the central theme in a significant publication released recently. The authors were the presidents of two of the nation’s largest healthcare companies and their goal was to connect the value clinical labs delivered during the COVID-19 pandemic to the financial threat labs face should the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014 (PAMA) fee cuts coming to the Medicare Part B Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule (CLFS) be implemented.
In an article for RealClearPolicy, healthcare executives William G. Morice II, MD, PhD (left), CEO/President, Mayo Clinic Laboratories, and Matt Sause (right), President of Roche Diagnostics North America wrote, “Without PAMA reform, labs could face drastically reduced reimbursement for commonly performed lab tests for a host of diseases.” (Photo copyrights: Mayo Clinic Laboratories/Roche Diagnostics.)
IVD Companies and Clinical Laboratories Sound Alarm
Morice and Sause warn that—without PAMA reform—the nation’s vital medical laboratories will face “drastically reduced reimbursement” for commonly performed lab tests for diseases, including diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. Reimbursement cuts may cause clinical labs serving “the most vulnerable and homebound” to reduce services or close, they noted.
“To emerge from nearly three years of a pandemic by sending the signal that austerity is our nation’s health policy when it comes to testing and diagnostics would be a significant mistake,” they wrote.
“If the proposed cuts to reimbursements for diagnostic tests are allowed to take effect, disparities caused by challenges with accessing diagnostic tests will likely grow even further,” the authors continued.
However, they added, “The Saving Access to Laboratory Services Act [SALSA] would reform PAMA to require accurate and representative data from all laboratory segments that serve Medicare beneficiaries to be collected to support a commonsense Medicare fee schedule that truly represents the market.”
How PAMA Affects Clinical Laboratory Reimbursements
PAMA, which became law in 2014, was aimed at marrying Medicare Part B Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule (CLFS) reimbursement rates to rates medical laboratories receive from private payers, the National Independent Laboratory Association (NILA) explained in a news release.
But from the start, in its implementation of the PAMA statute, the methods used by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to collect data on lab test prices paid by private payers—which were the basis for calculating new lab test prices for the Medicare program—were criticized by many laboratory professionals and other health experts.
Critics frequently pointed out that several types of clinical laboratories were excluded from reporting their private payer lab test prices. Thus, the data collected and used by CMS did not accurately represent the true range of prices paid for clinical lab tests by private health insurance plans, said lab industry groups.
CMS regulations “exclude most hospital outreach laboratories and physician office laboratories from data collection. This approach depresses median prices and has led to deep cuts to lab reimbursement. Many tests were cut up to 30% in 2018 when the new system went into effect,” the America Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC) noted in a statement.
On September 8, just weeks after publication of the article authored by Morice and Sause, 26 organizations representing clinical laboratories and diagnostics manufacturers sent a letter to Congressional leaders. In it they described the financial impact on labs due to the current law’s omission of some outreach and physician office lab testing, and they urged the passage of the SALSA legislation.
“The significant under-sampling led to nearly $4 billion in cuts to those labs providing the most commonly ordered test services for Medicare beneficiaries,” the organizations wrote in their letter. “For context, the total CLFS spend for 2020 was only $8 billion.”
Reimbursement Cuts to Lab Tests are Coming if SASLA Not Passed
“Without Congressional action, beginning on Jan. 1, 2023, laboratories will face additional cuts of as much as 15% to some of the most commonly ordered laboratory tests,” the NILA said.
“Enactment of the Saving Access to Laboratory Services Act (SALSA/H.R. 8188/S.4449) is urgently needed this year, to allow laboratories to focus on providing timely, high quality clinical laboratory services for patients, continuing to innovate, and building the infrastructure necessary to protect the public health,” NILA added.
In an editorial she wrote for Clinical Lab Products, titled, “Be a Labvocate: Help Pass SALSA Legislation,” Kristina Martin, Clinical Pathology Operations Director, Department of Pathology, University of Michigan Medicine said, “The SALSA legislation provides a permanent, pragmatic approach to evaluating the CLFS, eliminating huge swings, either positive or negative as it pertains to Medicare reimbursement. It also allows for a more comprehensive evaluation of data to be collected from a broader sampling of laboratory sectors.”
Uses statistical sampling for widely available tests performed by a “representative pool of all clinical laboratory market segments.”
Introduces annual “guardrails” aimed at creating limits for reductions as well as increases in CLFS rates.
Excludes Medicaid managed care rates since they are not true “market rates.”
Gives labs the option to exclude mailed remittances from reporting if less than 10% of claims.
Eases clinical labs’ reporting requirements by changing data collection from three years to four.
Make Your Views Known
Proponents urge Congress to act on SALSA before the end of the year. Clinical laboratory leaders and pathologists who want to express their views on SALSA, test reimbursement, and the importance of access to medical laboratory testing can do so through Stop Lab Cuts.org. The website is sponsored by the ACLA.
South Asian nation aims to do what US, UK, and Europe failed to do during start of COVID-19 pandemic and slow spread of disease while case counts are low
With monkeypox quickly spreading around the world, India may be taking a lesson from western nations’ delayed response to COVID-19—including a sometimes slow availability of clinical lab testing for monkeypox—and preemptively increasing its national surveillance of the deadly social disease.
On Aug. 29, the Hindustan Times reported that in an attempt to slow the spread of monkeypox, India’s central government “has designated 15 viral research and diagnostic laboratories (VRDLs) spread across 13 states to monitor the incidence of monkeypox in the country.”
In the United States, the disease has spread with alarming speed, reaching all 50 states, as well as Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico. At 23,893 confirmed cases as of Sept. 14, the US now has the most cases in the world, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Reuters reported on Aug. 4 that the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had declared a public health emergency. It was in May when monkeypox was detected in the United Kingdom (UK). Both the UK and several countries in Europe have struggled to control spread of the disease.
India hopes its decision to designate 15 VRDLs across 13 states to monitor the disease’s spread will enable it to do a better job than other countries at containing or eradicating monkeypox in the nation of 1.4 billion people, the Hindustan Times reported.
“The probability of containment is diminishing daily,” American infectious disease epidemiologist Anne Rimoin, PhD, a monkeypox expert at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, told STAT. “It’s really unfortunate because we do have the tools. This is not an unknown virus … We have vaccines that are already available, even vaccines with indications for monkeypox. Therapeutics. And we know what’s needed to be done.’’ Clinical laboratory testing for monkeypox will certainly increase over the coming months. (Photo copyright: KTLA.)
Keeping Up Their Guard
“Fortunately, India has not seen a surge in cases and the situation here is well under control. However, we cannot drop the guard just as yet. Therefore, a network of VRDLs has been established for surveillance purposes,” a top government expert told the Hindustan Times, seeking anonymity. “It will help pick signs early in case more cases get reported.”
As of Sept. 19, 2022, India reported just 12 cases of monkeypox resulting in one death, while, as noted above, the US had 23,892 confirmed cases and one death, according to CDC statistics. In the UK, confirmed cases totaled 3,552 with no deaths. And, as of that date, the European Union reported 19,379 confirmed cases.
Until recently, monkeypox was endemic only in West and Central Africa. India reported its first case of monkeypox on July 14. So far, most, but not all, of its cases have been related to international travel.
“The isolated cases of monkeypox reported in Delhi with no prior travel history emphasize the importance of tracing the source of the infection, perhaps transmission through rodent population,” Diwakar Kulkarni, PhD, former Director and Principal Scientist at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases, told Think Global Health.
Homosexuality a Vector in India
While India’s scientists are focused on containing the monkeypox outbreak, the country’s government may encounter societal roadblocks because of the disease’s connection with homosexuality. Gay sex is believed to be fueling the spread of the disease, ABC News reported. Until a Supreme Court of India ruling in 2018, gay sex was punishable by up to 10 years in prison in India.
Virologist and noted HIV expert Ishwar Gilada, MD, who opened India’s first AIDS clinic in 1986, told Bloomberg “anti-gay stigma” in India is causing male patients to avoid getting tested and treated for the disease. He said even before the first monkeypox cases were reported in India, two of his patients—a gay man and a man who identified as bisexual—refused to get tested because they feared being the first monkeypox case in the country.
“They are going underground,” Gilada told Bloomberg.
Did the US Wait Too Long to Begin Testing for Monkeypox?
The rapid growth in cases worldwide and the geographic spread of the disease has left global health experts pessimistic monkeypox can be contained.
NPR reported in June that some experts believe public health agencies ran too few tests in the early months of the outbreak because state health officials used a narrow definition of monkeypox when determining who qualified for testing, and that the US had “dropped the ball” on monkeypox testing.
As of Sept. 19, 2022, there were 62,406 confirmed cases worldwide, according to the CDC.
As clinical laboratories attempt to recover from the workload created by the COVID-19 pandemic, monkeypox appears to be the next endemic to test the mettle of lab professionals. Only time will tell if America and other western nations failed to act as expeditiously as India in curbing spread of this latest deadly disease.
