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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Pathologists Are Included in the Updated CMS “Physician Compare” Website

Medicare officials continue to work toward improved transparency in provider outcomes

Medicare officials are making progress in their efforts to help patients “shop” for doctors, including pathologists. It has gone live with a new website called “Physician Compare.” This website offers many search functions not previously available.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) put up the new website to fulfill one mandate of the healthcare reform law, known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) of 2010. CMS expanded the information available to healthcare consumers on its online physician directory tool. (more…)

Do or Die: Clinical Laboratories Must Invest to Build Up LIS-EMR Interfaces with Physicians’ Offices

Experts predict a surge in the number of physicians using electronic medical record systems

By dangling as much as $20 billion in front of physicians to encourage their adoption of electronic medical record (EMR) systems during the next few years, Congress has created a new and expensive challenge for the nation’s clinical laboratories. That challenge is the need for every pathology laboratory to establish a high-function interface from its LIS to the office-based physician’s EMR.

According to one expert, the government’s “carrot and stick” strategy to reward doctors financially for adopting EMR’s, will soon force independent medical laboratories and hospital laboratory outreach programs to play catch up with LIS-EMR interfaces to maintain access to physician referrals and the revenue that accompanies these laboratory test specimens.

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As Both Senator and President, Obama Actively Supports Personalized Medicine and Genetic Testing

It may be that personalized medicine is becoming one of those All-American icons, like apple pie and mom. That’s because personalized medicine, as a concept and goal for the American healthcare system, seems to have universal support. If true, this is a positive long-term development for clinical laboratories and pathology groups.

Take the new president, for example. Barack Obama has long contended that personalized medicine must be at the heart of health care reform. “The issue of getting the right treatment to the right person goes with his [Obama’s] whole emphasis on health reform,” said Mark McClellan, who headed the FDA and Medicare under the Bush Administration. McClellan was speaking about President Obama during an interview with MSNBC. “If we’re thinking about reforming the healthcare system, we should be thinking about what medicine will be like down the road when healthcare reform is fully implemented,” observed McClellan during his MSNBC interview.

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