Dec 12, 2017 | Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Testing, Management & Operations, News From Dark Daily
In filing Monday, lawsuit seeks to force HHS to comply with PAMA’s statutory requirements and to withhold applying the new Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule until HHS has revised the final rule appropriately
Many clinical laboratory executives will welcome the news that a lab industry trade association has filed a lawsuit in federal court in an effort to delay and fix the final rule for Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014 (PAMA) private payer lab test market price reporting that Medicare officials used to lower prices on the Medicare Part B Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule (CLFS) that is scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, 2018.
In a lawsuit filed Monday, the American Clinical Laboratory Association (ACLA) charged that the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ignored congressional intent and instituted a highly-flawed data reporting process when setting the 2018 CLFS rates under the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014.
The ACLA asked the US District Court for the District of Columbia to force HHS to comply with PAMA’s statutory requirements, to withhold applying the new CLFS until HHS has revised the final rule appropriately. The CLFS is due to take effect on Jan. 1.
The lawsuit also seeks to vacate any actions that HHS made that were not in accordance with the PAMA law and to withdraw or suspend the final rule under PAMA. The case is American Clinical Laboratory Association v. Hargan, US District Court, District of Columbia, No. 1:17-cv-2645.
Final Prices for the 2018 Part B Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule
Last month, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued the final CLFS rates and said at the time that it did so in compliance with the 2016 final rule implementing changes to the Medicare clinical laboratory fee schedule under PAMA section 216.
“We have repeatedly advised CMS that there are significant, substantive deficiencies in the final rule, which fail to follow the specific commands of the PAMA statute,” said ACLA President Julie Khani in an ACLA press release. “Contrary to Congress’ intent, instead of reforming Medicare reimbursement rates to reflect the broad scope of the laboratory market, the Secretary’s final rule will disrupt the market and prevent beneficiaries from having access to the essential laboratory services they need.”
Shown above is Julie Khani, President of the American Clinical Laboratory Association (ACLA) speaking at the Executive War College on Laboratory and Pathology Management last May in New Orleans. In a press release announcing ACLA’s lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services, Khani emphasized that many clinical laboratories had advised officials at the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) about the “significant, substantive deficiencies in the final rule” for private payer market price reported that CMS designed. (Photo copyright: The Dark Report.)
22 Healthcare Organizations Opposed Cuts to Clinical Laboratory Test Prices
The ACLA, the American Hospital Association (AHA), and more than 20 other organizations had urged CMS to suspend implementation of the new CLFS rates, which are scheduled to take effect Jan. 1. The organizations cited concerns over the data-collection process used to establish the rates, and the fact that the rates would cause clinical laboratories to struggle financially and possibly close. If the rates set under PAMA affect Medicare beneficiaries’ access to clinical lab testing, the law would have the opposite effect of its intent.
To bring the lawsuit, ACLA retained Mark D. Polston, JD, of the Washington, DC, law firm of King and Spaulding. A specialist in representing healthcare systems seeking to navigate Medicare regulations, Polston is the former Chief Litigation counsel for CMS and specializes in complicated Medicare reimbursement litigation. Recently, he successfully challenged Medicare’s so-called “two-midnight” rule that imposed a 0.2% rate cut on hospitals billing for some patients.
Medicare Program Prohibited Most Medical Laboratories from Reporting
Contrary to Congress’ directives, most laboratories were prohibited from reporting private payer data under CMS’ market-rate data-collection process, ACLA said in a prepared statement. “As a result, CMS failed to protect access to laboratory services for Medicare beneficiaries. This flawed process could cause serious financial harm to potentially thousands of hospitals, independent and physician office laboratories, and make it harder for Medicare beneficiaries to get access to medical testing, particularly in remote rural areas and in nursing homes that depend on laboratory testing services,” ACLA said.
In the lawsuit, ACLA alleged that more than 99.3% of hospitals were prohibited from reporting their market-rate data. It is believed that this is the first time this figure has been reported. In 2015, the lawsuit charged, more than 261,500 entities received Medicare payment for laboratory services but only 1,942 laboratories reported market-rate information in 2016 under the PAMA final rule. The 1,942 labs that reported market-rate data is about 0.7% of the total number of laboratories that serve Medicare beneficiaries, the lawsuit said.
Only 21 of 7,000 Hospital Laboratories Reported Data
“Moreover, contrary to Congress’ intent, the laboratories that did report information are not representative of the market as a whole,” the lawsuit added. “For example, although approximately 7,000 hospital laboratories billed Medicare for laboratory services in 2015—accounting for 24% of the Medicare payments made under the Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule—no more than 21 hospital laboratories (and probably even fewer) reported information to the secretary, leaving hospital laboratories effectively unrepresented in the data collected by the secretary.
“Hospital laboratories are often the only laboratories available to patients in certain areas of the country, and the private payer rates they receive are often much higher than other laboratories, due to differences in competitive markets, volumes of services, and other factors,” the lawsuit charged.
The Dark Report, Dark Daily’s sister publication, provided a compelling example of the serious flaws in the market price study conducted by CMS. Writing about the state of Michigan, The Dark Report noted: “At Joint Venture Hospital Laboratory Network (JVHL), CEO John Kolozsvary said Michigan’s hospitals serve 70% of the office-based physicians in the state with outreach lab testing services. Included among these hospitals are the 120 JVHL member laboratory facilities.”
“Since our network, plus the outreach programs of another 25 or 30 hospitals, hold a significant share of outreach lab testing in Michigan, how can CMS conduct an accurate, representative market study of what private insurers pay for lab tests in Michigan if it doesn’t collect data on what private payers reimburse hospital lab outreach programs in Michigan?” stated Kolozsvary in his interview with The Dark Report.
Did CMS ‘Disregard and Violate’ PAMA Statute?
In the ACLA’s announcement of the lawsuit, Polston said, “CMS clearly disregarded and violated the statute’s specific, unambiguous directives requiring commercial rate information to be reported and collected from a broad, diverse group of market participants. Instead, information was collected from less than 1% of US laboratories.”
In the press announcement, ACLA Board Chair Curt Hanson, MD, Chief Medical Officer of Mayo Medical Laboratories said, “This lawsuit reflects our obligation to those who are providing critical testing services, and to those millions of Americans who rely on the services our industry provides.” Others supporting the lawsuit include Laboratory Corporation of America and Quest Diagnostics.
Compliance with PAMA Law’s Statutory Requirements
In the lawsuit, ACLA seeks to require HHS to comply with the statutory requirements and to set aside the provisions in the final rule, “that unlawfully exempts thousands of laboratories from the reporting obligations that Congress imposed” under PAMA. A central feature of PAMA Section 216 is that laboratories must report market rate data so that HHS can ensure that Medicare reimbursement rates closely reflect the rates laboratories receive from private payers, the lawsuit said.
“ACLA was a strong supporter of Congress’ market-based reforms, which resulted in the most extensive changes to the system for reimbursing clinical laboratories since 1984,” the lawsuit said.
In challenging the final regulations, the lawsuit said HHS disregarded and violated, “the statute’s specific, unambiguous directives requiring that all applicable laboratories report relevant data.”
Congress Specified Which Medical Laboratories Are Obligated to Report
“In imposing these requirements, Congress took care to specify which laboratories would be obligated to report market data to ensure that information would be collected from a broad, diverse group of market participants,” the lawsuit said. “Congress made clear that any ‘laboratory’ would be required to report data if, ‘with respect to its revenues under [the Medicare program], a majority of such revenues are from’ the Physician Fee Schedule or the Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule,” the lawsuit charged.
In promulgating the regulations, however, HHS, disregarded Congress’ instructions and “unreasonably and arbitrarily exempted significant categories and large numbers of laboratories that meet the statutory definition from the reporting requirements that Congress imposed,” the lawsuit said.
“The secretary’s final rule fatally undermines one of PAMA’s purposes, which is to require a broad spectrum of Medicare-participating laboratories to report market information to the secretary. Instead, in ultra vires (Latin for “beyond the powers”) fashion, the secretary has carved out large categories of laboratories—ultimately resulting in the exclusion of some 99.3% of the laboratory market—from the statutory reporting requirements,” the lawsuit charged. Ultra vires acts fall outside the authority of the organization in question.
In the lawsuit, the ACLA claims under:
count 1: ultra vires agency action not in accordance with law, in excess of statutory authority;
count 2: unreasonable construction of statute;
count 3: violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, arbitrary and capricious action; and,
count 4: violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, injunctive and declaratory relief.
Seeking an Injunction to Have HHS Secretary to Withhold or Suspend Final Rule
In its final section, “Prayer for Relief,” the lawsuit asks the court to vacate, “any agency action found to be arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law;” to require the Secretary of HHS to comply with the statutory requirements, “including faithfully implementing the statutory definition of ‘applicable laboratory;’” and enter an “injunction that (1) directs the Secretary to withdraw or suspend his final rule until such time as it can be brought into compliance with the statute, and (2) directs the Secretary to withhold applying the new Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule until such time as the Secretary has made appropriate revisions to his final rule.” The lawsuit also asked the court to award to the ACLA “costs and disbursements of this action and reasonable attorneys’ fees.”
—Joseph Burns
Related Information:
ACLA Files Lawsuit Challenging PAMA Rates
CMS Ignored Congressional Intent in Implementing New Clinical Lab Payment System Under PAMA, ACLA Charges in Suit
Quest Diagnostics Supports Suit Against HHS Charging That CMS Ignored Congressional Intent in Implementing New Clinical Lab Payment System
LabCorp Supports American Clinical Laboratory Association Lawsuit on PAMA Final Rule
For Top 20 Tests, CMS to Cut Payment by 28% in 2018-2020; Medicare officials move one step closer to destroying beneficiary access to lab tests: The Dark Report, October 9, 2017
Nov 27, 2017 | Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Testing, Management & Operations, News From Dark Daily
November workshop to teach Clinical Lab 2.0 to forward-thinkers among clinical laboratories, IVD manufacturers, and lab IT vendors offered many examples where clinical laboratory diagnostics can add value and improve patient outcomes
DATELINE: ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico—Here in this mile-high city, a special Project Santa Fe Workshop devoted to teaching the principles of Clinical Lab 2.0 attracted an impressive roster of innovators and forward-thinkers in clinical laboratory medicine. In attendance were leaders from a select number of the nation’s first-rank health systems and hospitals, along with executives from In Vitro diagnostics (IVD) manufacturers, lab IT companies, other lab service companies, attendees from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and from institutions in Canada, Germany, Israel, India, and the UK.
Their common goal was to learn more about the emerging clinical and business model for medical laboratories known as “Clinical Lab 2.0.” A key objective of the workshop was to help those lab leaders in attendance develop strategic action plans for their own lab organizations, so as to take advantage of the insights coming from the vast information streams generated by their clinical laboratories. These services would be in support the evolving needs of health systems, hospitals physicians, and health insurers to more effectively provide integrated patient-centered clinical care.
Medical Laboratories Can Use Clinical Lab 2.0 as a Path to Adding Value
Clinical Lab 2.0 is the clinical and business model of the future for medical laboratories, assert the developers of this concept. “Clinical Lab 2.0 describes the attributes needed by all medical laboratories that want to succeed in a healthcare system organized to provide precision medicine, keep people out of hospitals, and where providers—including labs—are reimbursed based on the value they provide,” stated Khosrow Shotorbani, CEO of TriCore Reference Laboratories, one of the organizers of the Project Santa Fe Clinical Lab 2.0 Workshop.
“Clinical Lab 2.0 is the path medical labs will need to follow if they are to continue providing relevant lab testing services and generate the reimbursement necessary for them to maintain a high level of clinical excellence and financial stability going forward,” he added. “This is the next generation of medical laboratory organization and operation.”
Lab 1.0 Was Lab Clinical/Business Model for 50 Years
For more than 50 years, Clinical Lab 1.0 was the model for labs,” noted James Crawford, MD, PhD, Executive Director and Senior Vice President of Laboratory Services at Northwell Health Laboratories and an organizer of the Project Santa Fe Clinical Lab 2.0 Workshop. “Lab 1.0 is transactional, focusing on generating high quality analytical data on specimens received, but without assembling these data into integrative clinical care programs. In the simplest sense, Clinical Lab 1.0 focused on generating ever-greater numbers of specimens to drive down average cost-per-test, while maximizing revenue in a fee-for-service system.
This chart shows the attributes of Clinical Lab 1.0 and compares those to the attributes of Clinical Lab 2.0. Lab 1.0 is transactional and based on increasing test volume to lower costs and maximize fee-for-service revenue. Clinical Lab 2.0 is integrative in ways that add value to lab testing services. (Graphic copyright Project Santa Fe.)
“But fee-for-service payment is going away,” he said. “Increasingly, clinical laboratories will be paid based on the value they provide. This payment can be in the form of bundled reimbursement, as a per-member-per-month payment, or as a share of the budgeted payment made to a health system, an accountable care organization (ACO), or a multispecialty provider network. As these alternative forms of provider payment become dominant, to earn a fair share of reimbursement, all medical laboratories will need a clinical strategy to deliver lab testing services that measurably contribute to improved patient outcomes while reducing the overall cost of care. This requires looking at medical laboratories’ contribution to effective delivery of the full dollar of the healthcare spend, not just the three-cents-on-the-dollar representing laboratory testing.”
Innovators in Clinical Laboratory Industry Identify New Ways to Add Value
There are already a handful of innovative clinical laboratory organizations that have clinical experience in moving past the Lab 1.0 paradigm of reporting an accurate test result within the accepted turnaround time. Leaders within these labs are collaborating with physicians and frontline care givers specifically to help them better utilize lab tests in ways that directly improve the speed and accuracy of the overall diagnostic sequence, as well as achieving therapeutic optimization as rapidly as possible. These collaborations are tracking the improvement in patient outcomes while demonstrating how better use of lab tests can lower the total cost per episode of care.
During the Clinical Lab 2.0 workshop, case studies were presented demonstrating how clinical laboratory leaders are taking the first steps to practice Clinical Lab 2.0 so as to achieve added value with medical laboratory tests. The case studies included:
· A project to improve diagnosis and treatment of sepsis at Geisinger Health System.
· A project at Henry Ford Health to collaborate with physicians to more appropriately utilize lab tests and build consensus in support of a new lab test formulary.
· A multi-hospital initiative at Northwell Health to collaborate with physicians and nurses in the use of creating testing to make earlier, more accurate diagnoses of acute kidney injury during inpatient admissions, and better guide decisions to treat.
· A partnership involving TriCore Reference Laboratory and certain health insurers in New Mexico where the laboratory—using lab test data (some generated by emergency room testing) and other clinical data—alerts the insurers to women who are pregnant, thus allowing the insurers to provide timely guidance to the women’s care teams with the goal of improving prenatal care.
The Project Santa Fe Clinical Lab 2.0 Workshop convened on November 13-14 in Albuquerque, N.M. A broad spectrum of innovative professionals from the five Project Santa Fe member laboratories (above) were there to teach the lessons learned from their first successful efforts to collaborate with physicians and create added value from medical laboratory diagnostics. Other attendees included progressive lab leaders from several of the nation’s most prominent health systems, along with thought leaders from the IVD, lab software, and lab association sectors. (Photo copyright Project Santa Fe.)
Project Santa Fe Workshop: A Well-Attended Lab ‘Think Tank’
Participants attending the Clinical Lab 2.0 workshop included hospital lab administrators, pathologists, and clinical laboratory industry executives. The importance of this workshop is reflected in the educational grants and financial support provided by leading in vitro diagnostics manufacturers, lab IT companies, and other lab industry vendors. The lab industry vendors included:
· Abbott Laboratories
· ARUP Laboratories
· Beckman Coulter
· DiaSorin
· MedSpeed
· Roche Diagnostics
· Siemens Healthineers
· Sysmex
Also providing educational grants and similar support were:
· American Clinical Laboratory Association
· CAP Today
· Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
· Mayo Medical Laboratories
· The Dark Report
Project Santa Fe was launched in 2016 by clinical lab leaders from five of the nation’s most respected integrated health systems:
· TriCore Reference Laboratories;
· Henry Ford Health;
· Geisinger Health;
· Kaiser Permanente Northern California; and,
· Northwell Health.
Described as a think-tank venture, the organizers are committed to implementing projects that demonstrate how lab tests can be used in ways that add value, and then publish the resulting projects, along with data about improved patient outcomes and reductions in healthcare costs, in peer-reviewed journals. Multi-institutional studies will be required to validate the findings and outcomes from the added-value clinical collaborations initiated at the different medical laboratory organizations participating in Project Santa Fe.
Another primary goal is to share the lessons learned from these innovative projects with other like-minded pathologists, lab administrators, and lab managers. In May, Project Santa Fe organizers led a one-day workshop to teach Clinical Lab 2.0 at the Executive War College on Laboratory and Pathology Management. The workshop in Albuquerque on November 13-14 was the second learning opportunity available to medical laboratory professionals. A November 2018 workshop is planned.
—Robert L. Michel
Related Information:
Project Santa Fe Workshop
Improving American Healthcare through “Clinical Lab 2.0”: A Project Santa Fe Report
Laboratory 2.0: Changing the Conversation
CEO Describes Characteristics of the Clinical Lab 2.0 Model: Five Health System Labs Using Project Santa Fe To Demonstrate Value
Moving to Clinical Lab 2.0: Deliver More Value! Get Paid More Dollars!
Lab Innovators Advocate Need for Clinical Lab 2.0: Lab 1.0 Is the Low-Paid Commodity Lab, While Lab 2.0 Gets Paid More for the Value It Contributes
Using the Laboratory Value Pyramid and Clinical Lab 2.0 to Position Your Lab to Add Value in the Era of Population Health, Precision Medicine, and Value-Based Payment
Jun 19, 2017 | Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology
Effective medical lab/physician collaborations to improve how lab tests are ordered and used can deliver big improvements in patient outcomes while reducing healthcare costs
Utilization management of clinical laboratory tests may be the single hottest trend in laboratory medicine today. Across the nation, medical laboratory scientists and pathologists are getting out of the lab to collaborate with physicians to meet the common goal of ordering the right test for the right patient at the right time.
“There are two urgent reasons why clinical laboratories and anatomic pathology groups are engaging with clinicians in projects to improve the utilization of lab tests and both involve money,” stated Robert L. Michel, Editor-In-Chief of The Dark Report. “First, an effective project to improve how physicians use lab tests can return immediate savings to both the lab and the parent hospital. Utilization management projects of this type have the goal of reducing or eliminating orders for duplicate tests, unnecessary tests, and outmoded lab assays. For hospital labs with shrinking budgets, the speedy savings that result from these lab test utilization efforts provide welcome relief.
Progressive Medical Laboratories Want to Deliver More Value
“Second, progressive medical laboratories that want to increase the value of their lab testing services to protect budgets and claim a fair share of value-based payments are going one step further,” explained Michel. “These labs are organizing collaborative projects with physicians and hospital administrators to leverage specific lab tests in ways that measurably improve patient outcomes while, at the same time, contributing to sizeable reductions in the overall cost per patient encounter.”
Today, almost every clinical laboratory and pathology group is under significant and sustained financial pressure. Payers continue to reduce the prices they pay for lab tests. Similarly, hospitals and health systems—facing flat or declining volume of inpatients—are pushing budget cuts across all their clinical service lines, including their labs. These trends force lab directors to pursue the twin strategy of cutting costs while increasing revenue.
Better utilization of lab tests is a business and clinical strategy that enables labs to meet both goals. When physicians do a better job of ordering the right test, and following up the lab test results with the right therapies, healthcare costs go down while patient outcomes improve.
Further, with Medicare and private health insurers continuing to move toward value-based reimbursement arrangements, any clinical lab that can step up and help its client physicians achieve documented improvements in patient outcomes has a legitimate claim to fair reimbursement under bundled and budgeted payment arrangements.
Keen Industry Interest in Utilization Management of Clinical Lab Tests
Proof of the keen interest that lab managers have in utilization management of clinical laboratory tests is the fact that a session on this topic was one of the best-attended at this spring’s Executive War College on Lab and Pathology Management.
Speaking first during this session was Tammy Fletcher, Administrator of Value-Based Services for Mayo Medical Laboratories (MML) in Rochester, Minnesota. As physicians and clinical pathologists at the Mayo Clinic develop and demonstrate clinical guidelines and protocols that utilize medical laboratory tests in the most effective way, Fletcher helps provide that information to client labs throughout the United States. This gives her a unique perspective on the best ways that lab managers can support successful lab test utilization management projects.
Tammy Fletcher (above), Administrator of Value-Based Services at the Mayo Medical Laboratories (MML), located in Rochester, Minn., is shown speaking at the Executive War College on Laboratory and Pathology Management last May. She is involved in helping the clinical laboratory clients of MML develop and implement effective utilization management programs to improve how physicians use medical laboratory tests. She will be speaking as part of a utilization management webinar that takes place on June 29. (Photo copyright: The Dark Report. Photo by Linda Reineke.)
Fletcher emphasized that, for utilization management initiatives to deliver optimal benefits, labs should follow a road map with five primary elements. They are:
- Assess and assemble;
- Message;
- Education and guidance;
- Analytics and evidence; and
- Payer collaboration.
She emphasized that labs should understand how improving utilization of clinical lab tests helps the parent hospital and health system in two important ways. One way is to score higher in assessments by accrediting bodies. The second way is to deliver measurable improvements that meet and exceed the criteria of the health insurers that are key to the institution’s success, including Medicare and Medicaid.
Utilization Management Successes at Minneapolis Health System
Next to speak was Bobbi Jo Kochevar, MBA, MT (ASCP), Director of Diagnostic Services at North Memorial Health Care in Robbinsdale, Minnesota. Her clinical laboratory serves multiple hospitals and an integrated health system. Thus, the lab team has the opportunity to develop utilization management projects that can involve providers in inpatient, outpatient, and outreach settings in ways that contribute to improved patient care.
Bobbi Jo Kochevar (above), MBA, MLS(ASCP), is Director of Care Coordination for Diagnostic and Therapy Services at North Memorial Health Care in Robbinsdale, Minn. In recent years, she and her clinical laboratory team have conducted several utilization management projects involving how physicians order and use medical laboratory tests. These projects have improved patient care while significantly reducing billing denials. Kochevar will be sharing the lessons learned and successes of her lab team’s utilization management projects during Dark Daily’s upcoming webinar on June 29. (Photo copyright: The Dark Report. Photo by Linda Reineke.)
What caught the audience’s attention during this session was Kochevar’s demonstration of how the clinical laboratory was able to engage clinicians in utilization management projects targeting use of such assays as homocysteine and Enterobacteria phage T4 in ways that improved patient care while also meeting payer criteria. The result was improved patient outcomes and a substantial reduction in billing denials because more claims were properly documented at first submission, thanks to improved physician adherence to both the clinical protocols and to documenting compliance to payers’ requirements.
Many Labs Working to Improve Utilization of Medical Laboratory Tests
Because utilization management of lab tests is now a high priority at most clinical labs and pathology groups, Dark Daily is hosting a special webinar that features Tammy Fletcher and Bobbi Kochevar as the speakers titled, “Simple, Swift Approaches to Lab Test Utilization Management: Proven Ways for Your Clinical Laboratory to Use Data and Collaborations to Add Value.” The webinar takes place on Thursday, June 29, 2017, at 1PM EDT.
This is a must-attend for clinical pathologists, lab managers, and lab scientists who wants to:
- Develop their skills and knowledge in how to design an effective utilization management (UM) project; and
- Learn the best method for encouraging physicians and administrators to launch a winning collaboration and implement a UM project.
Fletcher will identify best practices in utilization management projects that she has learned from her work within the Mayo Clinic and with hospitals and health systems throughout the nation. She will discuss the five elements of the utilization management roadmap.
Nine Foundational Competencies in Utilization Management
Most importantly, Fletcher will describe the nine foundational utilization management competencies in detail. These range from leadership support and operations bandwidth to clinical content and knowledge diffusion. You’ll learn the essentials, as well as receive practical advice on specific pitfalls to avoid.
Kochevar will provide you and your lab team with the practical lessons learned from doing multiple, effective utilization management projects within her integrated health system. This is useful, handy knowledge that you can apply immediately.
An important topic that Kochevar will cover involves the five categories of lab test utilization. She will explain what needs to happen differently if a utilization management project is targeting repetitive or duplicate testing versus contraindicated screening and testing. Kochevar will help you understand how to customize a utilization management project to best address the different concerns and patient care improvement opportunities associated with each of the five different categories of lab test utilization.
The webinar on utilization management is ideal for clinical pathologists, lab managers, and anyone working on utilization management teams. It will help beginners understand the basics of working with clinicians on projects to improve lab test utilization while providing actual case studies and advanced techniques for intermediate and advanced practitioners.
To see the agenda and to register, use this link https://ddaily.wpengine.com/webinar/simple-swift-approaches-to-lab-test-utilization-management-proven-ways-for-your-clinical-laboratory-to-use-data-and-collaborations-to-add-value. (Or copy and paste this URL in your browser: https://ddaily.wpengine.com/webinar/simple-swift-approaches-to-lab-test-utilization-management-proven-ways-for-your-clinical-laboratory-to-use-data-and-collaborations-to-add-value.)
—Michael McBride
Related Information:
Simple, Swift Approaches to Lab Test Utilization Management: Proven Ways for Your Clinical Laboratory to Use Data and Collaborations to Add Value
Increasing Costs for Genetic Tests are Busting Lab Budgets
Lab Test Utilization Delivers Big Gains at Cleveland Clinic
As Medical Laboratory Test Utilization Grows, Health Insurers Develop Programs to Manage Rising Costs
Naval Medical Center Study Reveals More than One-third of Genetic Tests are Misordered; Clinical Laboratories Critical to Improving Lab Test Utilization
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…)
Jan 16, 2017 | Laboratory Hiring & Human Resources, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Testing
15th Annual Frontiers in Laboratory Medicine (FiLM) takes place in Birmingham, England, on January 31–February 1, 2017, and features pathology experts from UK, France, Sweden, The Netherlands, Serbia, Canada, and the USA
Recent innovations in medical laboratory management and operations in Europe and the United Kingdom (UK) will be the subject of a major conference that takes place on January 31 through February 1, 2017, in Birmingham, England. It is the 15th annual Frontiers in Laboratory Medicine (FiLM).
“Medical laboratories throughout Europe are confronted with multiple challenges,” stated Robert Michel, Editor-in-Chief of The Dark Report and one of the conference organizers. “Funding for lab tests is shrinking, demand for lab tests is soaring, and many national health systems are taking forceful actions to consolidate labs into regional networks. All of these topics will be discussed at FiLM.” (more…)
