News, Analysis, Trends, Management Innovations for
Clinical Laboratories and Pathology Groups
Hosted by Robert Michel

News, Analysis, Trends, Management Innovations for
Clinical Laboratories and Pathology Groups
Hosted by Robert Michel
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Further Advances in the Healthcare Price Transparency Trend Reveal Why Physicians Are Supportive; Hospitals and Medical Labs Are Slow to Post Their Prices

Feb 15, 2016 | Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology

Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina expands a website that allows consumers to check the prices charged by physicians; Clinical labs are watching the price transparency trend

Once again, a major health insurer has raised the stakes on transparency of the prices charged by physicians, hospitals, clinical laboratories, and anatomic pathology groups. Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina (BCBSNC) recently expanded a website for its members that lists what the insurer pays to different providers for various clinical services.

The database is searchable. Members have been able to access it since January of 2015. The website lists 1,200 non-emergency procedures, along with the average price that BCBS pays for each one.

Physicians Also Want Price Transparency

Consumers want more transparency of the prices charged by providers. But they are not the only group pushing for it. In a surprising twist, physicians in North Carolina were supportive of having their prices posted on a public website. (more…)

Capitol Hill Hears Message from Independent Clinical Laboratory Owners: Additional Medicare Cuts in 2013 Can Be Financially Devastating

Nov 21, 2012 | Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Uncategorized

Nation’s smaller independent medical laboratories and pathology groups provide clinical lab testing services in many under-served communities

Nov. 21, 2012, WASHINGTON, DC—Last Thursday, owners of independent clinical laboratory companies fanned out across Capitol Hill to meet with their respective Senators and Representatives. Probably the number one concern of these lab owners was further cuts to the Medicare Part B Clinical Laboratory Test Fee Schedule.

Congress is preparing to tackle a host of spending issues, not the least which is the Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate sustainable growth rates(SGR). Earlier this year, in February, Congress raided Medicare Part B Clinical Laboratory Test Fees by $2.7 billion over 10 years to provide a source of funding to temporarily fix SGR. (See Dark Daily, “In Fixing Physician Medicare Pay, Congress Enacts Yet Another Cut in Clinical Laboratory Test Fee Schedule,” February 20, 2012.) (more…)

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