Oct 2, 2013 | Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations, News From Dark Daily
Apple’s iPad remains the tablet PC of choice for physicians in United States, despite aggressive competition from competitors
With remarkable speed, medical professionals have taken to using tablet PCs. In fact, more than half the physicians in the United States now admit they use iPads and similar devices for healthcare purposes! This is an important trend because it changes the way clinicians want to access clinical laboratory test data and other forms of patient information.
The market for tablet PCs among medical professionals has grown each year since Apple first introduced the iPad in 2010. In fact, the global market for tablet PCs in healthcare is expected to increase to $1.7 billion for 2013. (more…)
Sep 27, 2013 | Coding, Billing, and Collections, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology
Pathology groups and clinical laboratories should be taking steps to collect from patients at the point of care, as a key strategy to minimize patient bad debt
Here’s some bad news for hospital Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) and an early warning for clinical laboratory administrators. A rising number of patients with high deductible health plans (HDHPs) are unable to pay their medical bills.
Enrollment in HDHPs has soared in recent years because more employers and health insurers have adopted these plans. HDHPs also are called consumer-directed health plans (CDHPs) and typically have annual family deductibles of between $5,000 and $10,000. (more…)
Sep 23, 2013 | Coding, Billing, and Collections, Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology
As healthcare systems make patient safety a greater priority, the public reporting of pathology errors in Canada has no comparable track record in the United States
Errors in anatomic pathology testing in the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan made media headlines this summer. In each case, it was just a limited number of cases where errors at pathology labs resulted in inaccurate diagnoses and, in at least one case, a needless mastectomy for a patient.
At a time when health systems in Canada, the United States, and other developed nations are giving great emphasis to patient safety, disclosure of life-changing diagnostic errors to patients is appropriate. Consumers are holding physicians—including surgical pathologists—to a higher standard of care. (more…)
Sep 18, 2013 | Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations
Family of Henrietta Lacks, who died in 1951, will have a say in the research use of the HeLA cancer cells
Patient privacy rights involving genetic information has gone to a new level. Pathologists and clinical laboratory managers will want to understand the legal precedents and new standards established in an unprecedented agreement between the family of a woman who died in 1951 and the growing research establishment studying her cervical cancer cells following her death.
It is a human interest story that attracted global media attention this summer. The immortal cancer cells of Henrietta Lacks—known in research laboratories as “HeLA” cells—are finally coming under legal protection after more than 60 years of travelling the globe.
It was 1951 when Lacks died of an aggressive form of cervical cancer, but her cancer cells were grown without consent of relatives and have been used worldwide in cancer research since her death. Lacks’ living relatives sought and recently obtained a legal agreement with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to protect their DNA privacy, according to a story published in USA Today. (more…)
Sep 16, 2013 | Coding, Billing, and Collections, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Sales and Marketing, Management & Operations, News From Dark Daily
Clinical laboratories and pathology groups serving Cigna beneficiaries can expect to see new requirements for genetic tests used to diagnose breast cancer, colon cancer and long QT syndrome
Effective this week, Cigna (NYSE: CI) in Bloomfield, Connecticut, is implementing a new program that requires genetic counseling and pre-authorization for certain genetic tests. This is an important development and clinical laboratory executives can expect to see other health insurers take similar steps.
Cigna wants to control costs and improve the appropriateness of ordering expensive genetic tests. It will start with tests for three conditions and may require counseling for other types of genetic tests if this program is successful. Industry observers expect other health insurers will follow Cigna’s example and also require genetic counseling for a compelling reason: all insurers recognize that more than 50% of all genetic tests may be ordered inappropriately, experts say.
(more…)
Sep 13, 2013 | Coding, Billing, and Collections, Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Digital Pathology, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations, News From Dark Daily
Across the nation, resources to support medical laboratory testing are dwindling even as physicians order more tests and labs must spend to acquire new diagnostic technologies
Canada’s clinical laboratory testing marketplace has just undergone another wave of consolidation among independent medical laboratory companies that has eliminated major lab test providers in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia.
But that’s just one trend in a nation where successive budget-cutting initiatives continue to whittle down and shrink the nation’s clinical laboratory testing infrastructure.
(more…)
