Dec 18, 2015 | Coding, Billing, and Collections, Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology
AJMC study shows ACOs that allocate majority of shared savings to primary care providers are more likely to generate savings
When it came time to pay bonuses to Medicare’s Pioneer ACOs and Shared Savings Program (MSSP) ACOs based on 2014 results, a substantial proportion of the payments went to primary care physicians compared to hospitals and specialist physicians. Significantly, only a minority of these ACOs qualified for bonus payments.
Pathologists and clinical laboratory managers watching the growth of ACOs will find it notable that primary care doctors received 46% of the shared-savings bonuses in the program’s first two years. Hospitals received 27% of the incentives while 20% went to specialists, according to a Modern Healthcare report.
High Expectations That ACOs Can Help Control Healthcare Costs
Twenty Pioneer ACOs and 333 Medicare’s Shared Savings Program (MSSP) ACOs combined to produce more than $411 million in total savings in 2014, although only 29% of the organizations generated enough savings to earn a bonus, a CMS Fact Sheet indicated.
“These results show that accountable care organizations as a group are on the path towards transforming how care is provided,” stated CMS Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt in a statement. “Many of these ACOs are demonstrating that they can deliver a higher level of coordinated care that leads to healthier people and smarter spending.” (more…)
May 12, 2014 | Coding, Billing, and Collections, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology
National survey of 1,768 family practice and internal medicine specialists determines that they are struggling to stay current with changing guidelines for ordering and interpreting medical laboratory tests
Recent publication of a new study confirms what pathologists and medical laboratory professionals have known for years: a significant number of primary care physicians acknowledge that they sometimes are uncertain about which clinical laboratory test is the most appropriate one to order. These same doctors also admit that they are often also uncertain how to interpret the results of some medical laboratory tests.
Physicians Uncertain when Ordering Clinical Laboratory Tests
These are two conclusions resulting from a survey published in the March-April edition of the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine (JABFM). It is important that clinical laboratory administrators and pathologists understand the survey findings for two important reasons.
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Jul 15, 2013 | Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
Missed results in EHRs were related to information overload, electronic handoffs from one provider to another, and perceptions of poor usability of the EHR
Physicians often overlook important clinical laboratory test results when they get too many alerts in a day. This was one of several findings from a study designed to see how physicians responded to alerts delivered through an electronic health record system (EHR).
These findings will not surprise most pathologists and medical laboratory managers. Daily and weekly, they see how frequently “out of normal” test results can be reported to a referring physician. (more…)
Feb 2, 2012 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations, News From Dark Daily
Frontiers in Laboratory Medicine (FiLM) attracted another record crowd of clinical laboratory managers and pathologists
DATELINE—BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND: Healthcare in the United Kingdom is undergoing a host of reforms. Consequently, medical laboratories in this country are scrambling to evolve in ways that allow them to serve the new line-up of primary care trusts and hospital trusts, even as payment for pathology testing services must be negotiated with commissioning bodies.
The many changes unfolding within the National Health Service (NHS) helped to attract a record crowd to the 10th Annual Frontiers in Laboratory Medicine (FiLM), which was conducted in Birmingham, England. For the second year in a row, this conference was sold out.
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Apr 18, 2011 | Digital Pathology, Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
Interesting technology could be incorporated into medical laboratory tests
Though still in early development, “SmartPills” —a technology now being adapted for therapeutic drug delivery and monitoring—could be used in ways that bring pathologists into closer consultation with primary care physicians.
Using new drug-delivery technology created by California-based Proteus Biomedical, the SmartPill sends information from inside the patient’s body to a chip that’s worn outside on the skin in a patch, or embedded under the skin. The chip then uploads the data to a Smartphone or through the Internet to the prescribing physician.
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