Feb 2, 2015 | Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Sales and Marketing, News From Dark Daily
Quest has not yet commented on the lawsuit, which was filed by three individuals who had clinical laboratory tests performed by the nation’s largest public lab company
In California last Thursday, three California residents filed a class action lawsuit charging Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (NYSE: DGX) with acquiring competitor medical labs, paying kickbacks to physicians, and developing exclusionary agreements with health insurers to monopolize the market for clinical laboratory testing in Northern California.
Filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the complaint cites violations of the federal Sherman Act and the California Unfair Competition Law, Unfair Practices Act, and the Cartwright Act on behalf of California residents Christi Cruz of San Jose, Colleen Eastman of Hollister, and Carmen Mendez of, Milpitas. All three plaintiffs have used Quest laboratories and paid Quest Diagnostics Incorporated of Madison, New Jersey, for those testing services, the complaint says.
Lawsuit About Clinical Lab Testing Services Filed in Federal Court
The complaint was filed in the court’s San Francisco Division. In the court papers, lawyers for the three plaintiffs explain that injury to competition is manifest in three ways: above-competitive prices, inferior quality of testing, and reduction in choice among providers of routine diagnostic testing. “There is ample evidence that Quest has controlled prices in the relevant market in Northern California since at least 2011,” the complaint explains. (more…)
Dec 19, 2014 | Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Sales and Marketing
electronic health recordNew products are expected to radically change the wearable fitness device game by allowing physicians and patients and even pathologists to see the same data
If Apple Inc. can succeed with its latest wearable health device, experts predict that physicians may soon begin using it to monitor the health of their patients. This may be auspicious for pathologists and clinical laboratory scientists if physicians ask them to monitor that patient data and provide consultative support.
It was in September when Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) unveiled its new smartwatch. When combined with Apple’s HealthKit software platform, the Apple watch might well the most powerful wearable health-tracking device to hit the market yet. (more…)
Dec 3, 2014 | Coding, Billing, and Collections, Laboratory Hiring & Human Resources, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Sales and Marketing, Laboratory Testing
Researchers at the University of California San Francisco revealed that the cost for a simple cholesterol test ranged from as little as $10 to as much as $10,169!
Clinical laboratories owned by hospitals and health systems should take note of a public study of hospital laboratory test prices that was conducted by researchers at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF). It was published this summer and showed a remarkable range of prices for medical laboratory tests charged by California hospitals.
How about a charge of $10,169 for a routine blood cholesterol test? This was one finding a study discussed in the August 2014 issue of the British Medical Journal Open blog. The study was led by Renee Hsia, M.D.. She is an associate professor of Emergency Medicine and Health Policy at the UCSF Medical School. Hsia and her colleagues compared charges for 10 common clinical laboratory tests that were reported in 2011 by all non-federal California hospitals. (more…)
Nov 5, 2014 | Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Sales and Marketing, Management & Operations
With clinical laboratory acquisition candidates dwindling in number, Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings (LabCorp) (NYSE: LH) looked outside the medical laboratory industry and agreed to acquire Covance, Inc. (NYSE: CVD), a major player in clinical trials testing, for approximately $6.1 billion in cash and stock.
By taking this action, LabCorp will have bragging rights as the world’s largest laboratory testing company. Upon completion of this transaction, financial analysts point out that the two companies have combined annual revenue of $8.4 billion as of the period ending September 30, 2014. By comparison, annual revenue at Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (NYSE: DGX) was $7.1 billion for year ending 2013.
Covance Involved in Clinical Trials
Covance is a contract research company in Princeton, New Jersey, with annual revenues of $2.5 billion and 12,500 employees in more than 60 countries. In February of this year, Covance sold its Covance Genomics lab in Seattle, Washington, to LabCorp, per the company’s press release. Terms of this transaction were not announced. (more…)
Oct 20, 2014 | Laboratory Hiring & Human Resources, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Sales and Marketing
Other clinical laboratory organizations responding to the RFP were Laboratory Corporation of America, Quest Diagnostics Incorporated, and Mayo Clinic
Last Friday, Alberta Health Services (AHS) in Edmonton, Alberta, announced that Sonic Healthcare Limited (SHL.AX), of Sydney, Australia, has been selected as the medical laboratory testing provider to serve Edmonton and parts of central and northern Alberta. This agreement is worth $3 billion Canadian over 15 years and is believed to be the world’s biggest clinical laboratory testing contract currently out for bid.
Competition for this clinical laboratory testing contract was intense. Last April, four organizations were identified as having submitted responses to Alberta Health Service’s (AHS) request for proposals (RFP). They were: (more…)
May 7, 2014 | Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Sales and Marketing, Management & Operations
Prenatal testing, the most popular in China, is banned, affecting current projects at providers—another lesson for laboratories in how quickly things change
Genetic testing has been halted in China. This unexpected decree was announced in February. Government officials cited challenges surrounding “ethics, privacy, and the protection of human heredity resources, in a message posted on the China Food and Drug Administration’s website.
Authorities named prenatal DNA tests in particular as an area of concern in genetic testing. This may surprise pathologists and clinical laboratory professionals, who have regularly read about the substantial investments major Chinese companies have made in the field of gene sequencing. (more…)