Proof of vaccination, masking, and availability of on-site testing will continue to be measures taken at in-person events for pathologists and medical laboratory professionals
Organizers of in-person clinical laboratory conferences face an interesting dilemma as they plan events in 2022: Where do they draw the line with COVID-19 safety protocols?
On one hand, the surge of cases caused by the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant seems to be in its waning stages and large swaths of the population are vaccinated. On the other hand, clinical laboratory and anatomic pathology events want potential registrants to have confidence that it is safe to travel and attend the gatherings.
One lab industry conference producer who happens to be knee-deep in preparing for an in-person meeting this spring is Robert Michel, Editor-in-Chief of The Dark Report and Founder of the 27th Annual Executive War College on Laboratory and Pathology Management. This informative event takes place on April 27-28 in New Orleans and includes COVID-19 protocols to protect attendees.
The CDC chart above shows the daily number of new COVID-19 cases in the US for the six-month period ending Feb. 28, 2022. Clinical laboratory managers should note that the number of new cases is at its lowest level since the Omicron variant showed up early this year.
“It’s important for all those planning to attend this year’s Executive War College to know that screening COVID-19 protocols will be in place to ensure the health and safety of all participants,” Michel noted. “We did a large lab conference in the fall of 2021 that included protocols for COVID-19 and the attendees told us they appreciated the protection provided by those protocols.”
After a significant rise in COVID-19 cases in January 2022 due to the Omicron variant, current daily case levels now are lower than they were six months ago before the new variant hit, according to numbers from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The in-person 2021 Executive War College, which took place in San Antonio on Nov. 2-3, 2021, followed the CDC’s recommendations:
COVID-19 protocols included a daily set of questions and a temperature check for all speakers and attendees before they were allowed to enter the conference area.
CLIA-complex rapid PCR COVID-19 tests were available for individuals whose temperature and answers to the screening questions indicated the need for such testing.
Attendees used an app to answer the daily screening questions and upload proof of vaccination.
“At last fall’s Executive War College, approximately 400 attendees were screened on each of the three days before entering the conference area and not one rapid COVID-19 test was needed,” Michel said. “Not only is that an outstanding outcome, but a number of attendees also told us they appreciated our efforts to keep them safe and protect their health.”
The 2022 Executive War College will follow the CDC’s updated COVID-19 guidelines, along with any state and local directives in effect as of April 27.
Although 300 attendees were expected at the 2021 Executive War College, 400 registered and participated.
Proof of Vaccination Has Been Required at Other Clinical Lab Industry Events
Organizers of other clinical lab conferences also have dealt with COVID-19 safety protocols. For example, the American Clinical Laboratory Association (ACLA) will hold its annual meeting in Washington, D.C., on March 9. COVID-19-related requirements for attendees will include proof of vaccination uploaded to a vaccine verification vendor and proof of a negative PCR test taken within 72 hours prior to the event.
The annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Pathology (ASCP) occurs later this year in September in Chicago—too early yet to publish protocols. Last year’s ASCP conference in Boston was a hybrid event, offering both in-person and virtual options. Those who attended in person needed to upload proof of vaccination to a third-party vendor and were required to wear masks. On-site COVID-19 testing was available.
Revived Corporate Travel Could Boost Clinical Laboratory Conferences
The path back to live events across all industries has not been easy given various COVID-19 surges, political divisiveness over masking, frozen corporate travel budgets, and corporate policies banning or limiting employee travel.
Conference organizers throughout the United States universally hope those barriers will lower as 2022 progresses.
“With the fast-spreading Omicron triggering another round of setbacks to start 2022, event planners now are betting on spring to finally mark a turning point for the hard-hit industry,” MarketWatch reported on Feb. 4. “Their hopes hinge on American corporations taking a note from the recovery already under way for domestic air travel for leisure purposes, with the linchpin being a robust revival of trade show attendance and other in-person business gatherings.”
For Michel, offering actionable advice through well-thought-out sessions has been a cornerstone of the content offered each year at the Executive War College. He believes that approach will continue to be the strongest drawing point for clinical laboratory and pathology executives now considering attending the event.
“Our reading of the tea leaves is that across the profession of laboratory medicine, a great many managers, administrators, executives, and pathologists want to return to in-person conferences,” Michel noted. “Registrations for our April event are running ahead of 2019, and people tell us that they recognize the changes in healthcare and the lab marketplace because of the pandemic. They want to understand what’s driving current trends, like greater consumer involvement in lab testing and how to get private payers to reimburse claims for COVID-19 and genetic tests, as well as how a growing number of clinical laboratories are incorporating artificial intelligence solutions in both clinical care settings and lab operations.”
Thousands of pathologists and medical technologists may have had their private data stolen, though ASCP investigators did not confirm this as having happened
being entered” on the ASCP website, according to a letter sent by McDonald Hopkins PLC to then Attorney General of the New Hampshire Department of Justice (DOJ) Gordon MacDonald.
In “World’s Largest Pathologists Association Discloses Credit Card Incident,” Bleeping Computer, an information security and technology news publication, reported that on March 11 of this year, ASCP employees discovered their system had been hacked. They discerned that between March 3, 2020, and November 6, 2020, the attackers had access to personal information being entered on the ASCP website.
Bleeping Computer noted that “[the ASCP’s] member list includes over 100,000 medical laboratory professionals, clinical and anatomic pathologists, residents, and students.”
In a statement, the ASCP said, “We have recently been informed that our e-commerce website was the target of a cybersecurity attack that, for a limited time period, potentially exposed payment card data as it was entered on our website.”
The information that may have been stolen includes data pertaining to individual credit cards, names, credit or debit card numbers, expiration dates, and security codes (CVV) associated with the cards.
“We engaged external forensic investigators and data privacy professionals and conducted a thorough investigation into the incident,” the ASCP said in the statement.
What Type of Cyberattack?
Evidence collected regarding the ASCP data breach indicates the attack was part of a web-skimming assault. This involves installing malicious software, such as Magecart, onto an e-commerce website. The software acts like a credit card skimmer enabling hackers to steal the payment and personal information of customers who are actively inputting data on the attacked website. The data is then sent to remote servers where it is used for identity theft or sold to others.
ASCP says it does not permanently store any of its customers’ payment card data on its servers, Bleeping Computer reported, which greatly reduces the potential risk of data exposure. In addition, the ASCP has implemented extra security measures to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.
“We resolved the issue that led to the potential exposure on the website. We implemented additional security safeguards to protect against future intrusions. We continue ongoing intensive monitoring of our website, to ensure that it exceeds industry standards to be secure of any malicious activity,” the ASCP said in a statement, Bleeping Computer reported.
In an interview with TechRepublic, Peter Blum (above), Group Product Manager at Google, discussed steps companies can take to proactively manage the threat of Magecart cyberattacks. “The best defense against Magecart attacks is preventing access,” Blum said. “Online companies need a solution that intercepts all of the API [application programming interface] calls your website makes to the browser and blocks access to sensitive data you have not previously authorized. This prevents any malicious script, or any non-critical third-party script, from gaining access to information your customers enter on your website. This same system should also have a monitoring component to alert companies when a third-party attempts to access sensitive information.” (Photo copyright: LinkedIn.)
Federal Rules and Regulations Concerning HIPAA and PHI
The ASCP stated they have no evidence that any customer data was misused after the incident occurred. As of May 14, the organization has not made an official, public statement regarding the situation on their website, but affected individuals and jurisdictions were sent letters to inform them of the data breach.
With over 130,000 current members, Chicago-based ASCP is the largest professional organization for pathologists and clinical laboratory professionals in the world. The organization did not respond to Dark Daily’s inquiries regarding the data breach.
Notify affected individuals within 60 days of the discovery of the breach. Notification should include a brief description of the breach, the types of information that may have been compromised, steps affected individuals should take to protect themselves from potential harm, and a description of what the organization is doing to investigate the breach, mitigate the harm, and prevent further breaches.
Hacked entity must inform the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) within 60 days of the breach discovery if 500 or more individuals were affected. For breaches affecting less than 500 people, the breached entity may notify the Secretary of such breaches on an annual basis.
For breaches affecting more than 500 individuals, the hacked entity must also provide a notification to prominent media outlets, typically via a press release, that serve the state or jurisdiction.
This breach of credit card information belonging to a sizeable number of pathologists and clinical laboratory professionals using the ASCP website should be a warning to all clinical laboratories and anatomic pathology groups—along with colleges, societies, and associations—that their websites and digital systems can be attacked at any time. As well, clinical laboratory and pathology professionals should be on the alert and take all necessary precautions to minimize the possibility of data breaches.
Medical technologists and clinical laboratory professionals are the unsung heroes of the COVID-19 pandemic and the public is beginning to notice
Medical technologists (MTs) and clinical laboratory scientists (CLSs) are the foundation of every successful clinical laboratory. But they seldom make the news. Therefore, it is worth noting, during this COVID-19 pandemic, when clinical laboratory professionals receive public recognition for the important role they play in fighting the disease.
A news story published by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), titled, “Lab Tech Who Found B.C.’s 1st Case of COVID-19 Recalls ‘Sheer Terror’ of Discovery,” describes a laboratory technologist’s experience in British Columbia when she discovered the Canadian province’s first positive case of COVID-19 in January of 2020.
Finding COVID-19 for the First Time
On January 27, 2020, Rebecca Hickman, Public Health Laboratory Technologist, Molecular Biology and Genomics at BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) was carefully monitoring samples for COVID-19 and fearing a positive result for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus when her worst fear appeared before her eyes.
“I actually started to see it get positive within a few seconds,” Hickman recalled. “My first feeling was sheer terror, from a personal point of view.”
When Hickman realized a sample was going to test positive, she called Tracy Lee, Technical Coordinator at BC Centre for Disease Control and co-designer of the BCCDC’s COVID-19 test. Hickman had to interrupt Lee in a meeting, who then hurried to the lab to watch the test complete. It was a definite positive, the first confirmed case in British Columbia.
“To design, validate, and implement a molecular laboratory test usually takes months if not years, and so to do that in the span of days is a huge achievement,” Hickman told the CBC.
The following day, it was announced to the residents of BC that the COVID-19 coronavirus was in their province and that they needed to start taking necessary precautions. “This is the first time in my life I’ve ever found things out before I read it in the news,” Hickman said.
Supply Shortages Challenge British Columbia Clinical Laboratories
Hickman noted there have been several challenges in dealing with COVID-19 over the past year. “The instability and craziness of it all has been the hardest part,” she said. Last spring, the BC lab, like most labs, had to deal with a shortage of supplies and personal protective equipment.
According to BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) data, as of March 2, 2021, there have been 81,367 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the province of British Columbia. A total of 75,255 of those individuals have recovered from the coronavirus, more than 300 patients remain hospitalized, and 1,365 British Columbians have perished due to COVID-19. The population of the western Canadian province is approximately 5.1 million.
Today, Hickman, spends a majority of her time in the laboratory doing whole genome sequencing of confirmed COVID-19 cases. The data she collects is used for outbreak response and for tracking new variants of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that are appearing in different parts of the world. “It has been easily the most difficult year of my life, but also the most fulfilling,” she told the CBC. “What we have achieved here over the last year is huge.”
In their laboratory at the B.C. Centre for Disease Control in British Columbia, Canada, researchers Tracy Lee (above left) and Rebecca Hickman (above right) “are designing new tests to quickly identify variants of the COVID-19 virus,” North Shore News (NSN) reported. Now, wrote NSN, “the pair are working on a new type of ‘rapid test’ that will be able to detect ‘variants of concern’—particularly the U.K., South African, and Brazilian variants—at the same time as determining if a test is positive for COVID-19. When it’s finalized, that test is expected to dramatically speed up the process of hunting the variants.” (Photo copyright: North Shore News.)
Clinical Laboratories on the Front Lines
Last year, the American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP) produced a docuseries titled, “Laboratories on the Front Lines: Battling COVID-19” which highlighted the critical work clinical laboratories are doing to care for patients during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. The five-part series interviewed medical laboratory professionals across the US about their experiences during the pandemic.
In one episode, Stephanie Horiuchi, Clinical Microbiology Specialist at UCLA Health Systems, discussed how challenging and rewarding it has been working on the pandemic.
“Very long days. I’m not going to lie. Very, very long days, but it’s rewarding. I know the importance of what I am doing, and I know the importance of what needs to be done,” she said. “So, the time that I am here, it does go by very fast. You look up at the clock and you’re like oh, its 9pm. And then when I go home, it’s just eat and go to sleep and then rinse and repeat.
“I feel that this is a really important area of work that we all do as microbiologists,” Horiuchi continued. “And to just serve patients every day and to know that I am helping someone, it really warms my soul.”
In another episode of the docuseries, Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Alyssa Ziman, MD, Division Chief, Clinical Laboratory Medicine at UCLA Health, was interviewed regarding how they are coping with the increased demand for medical laboratory services.
“It’s been a really difficult and challenging time for our health system, for our laboratories, for our staff that are working through to provide the best possible patient care,” she said. Ziman is also Medical Director, Transfusion Medicine, at UCLA Health and Medical Director, Clinical Laboratories, at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. “Every day is a new challenge and a new way to adapt to changing rules from the CDC and from the LA County Public Health Department and to really evolve, so that we can continue to provide the testing that we have and continue to support our staff and our patients.”
Unsung Heroes of COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has placed a strain on medical resources throughout the world. Clinical laboratory professionals are emerging as the unsung heroes of the crisis and the entire medical laboratory profession is receiving much deserved positive recognition for the crucial role laboratories are playing in fighting the pandemic.
The No Surprises Act, passed as part of the COVID-19 relief package, ensures patients do not receive surprise bills after out-of-network care, including hospital-based physicians such as pathologists
Consumer demand for price transparency in healthcare has been gaining support in Congress after several high-profile cases involving surprise medical billing received widespread reporting. Dark Daily covered many of these cases over the years.
Now, after initial opposition and months of legislative wrangling, organizations representing medical laboratories and clinical pathologists have expressed support for new federal legislation that aims to protect patients from surprise medical bills, including for clinical pathology and anatomic pathology services.
The new law Congress passed is known as the No Surprises Act (H.R.3630) and is part of the $900 billion COVID relief and government funding package signed by President Trump on December 27.
The law addresses the practice of “balance billing,” in which patients receive surprise bills for out-of-network medical services even when they use in-network providers. An ASCP policy statement noted that “a patient (consumer) may receive a bill for an episode of care or service they believed to be in-network and therefore covered by their insurance, but was in fact out-of-network.” This, according to the ASCP, “occurs most often in emergency situations, but specialties like pathology, radiology, and anesthesiology are affected as well.”
Most portions of the No Surprises Act take effect on January 1, 2022. The law prohibits balance billing for emergency care, air ambulance transport, or, in most cases, non-emergency care from in-network providers. Instead, if a patient unknowingly receives services from an out-of-network provider, they are liable only for co-pays and deductibles they would have paid for in-network care.
New Law Bars Pathologists from Balance Billing without Advance Patient Consent
The law permits balance billing under some circumstances, but only if the patient gives advance consent. And some specialties, including pathologists, are barred entirely from balance billing.
The law also establishes a process for determining how healthcare providers are reimbursed when a patient receives out-of-network care. The specifics of that process proved to be a major sticking point for providers. In states that have their own surprise-billing protections, payment will generally be determined by state law. Otherwise, payers and providers have 30 days to negotiate payment. If they can’t agree, payment is determined by an arbiter as part of an independent dispute resolution (IDR) process.
Early Proposal Drew Opposition
An early proposal to prohibit surprise billing drew opposition from a wide range of medical societies, including the ASCP, CAP, and the American Medical Association (AMA).
All were signatories to a July 29, 2020, letter sent to leaders of the US Senate and House of Representatives urging them to hold off from enacting surprise billing protections as part of COVID relief legislation. Though the groups agreed in principle with the need to protect patients from surprise billing, they contended that the proposed legislation leaned too heavily in favor of insurers, an ASCP news release noted.
“Legislative proposals that would dictate a set payment rate for unanticipated out-of-network care are neither market-based nor equitable, and do not account for the myriad inputs that factor into payment negotiations between insurers and providers,” the letter stated. “These proposals will only incentivize insurers to further narrow their provider networks and would also result in a massive financial windfall for insurers. As such, we oppose the setting of a payment rate in statute and are particularly concerned by proposals that would undermine hospitals and front-line caregivers during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
On December 11, leaders of key House and Senate committees announced agreement on a bipartisan draft of the bill that appeared to address these concerns, including establishment of the arbitration process for resolving payment disputes.
However, in a letter sent to the committee chairs and ranking members, the AHA asked for changes in the dispute-resolution provisions, including a prohibition on considering Medicare or Medicaid rates during arbitration. “We are concerned that the IDR process may be skewed if the arbiter is able to consider public payer reimbursement rates, which are well known to be below the cost of providing care,” the association stated. However, legislators agreed to the change after last-minute negotiations.
“The AHA is pleased that Congress rejected approaches that would impose arbitrary rates on providers, which could have significant consequences far beyond the scope of surprise medical bills and impact access to hospital care,” AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack (above) said in a statement. “We also applaud Congress for rejecting attempts to base rates on public payers.” (Photo copyright: American Hospital Association.)
Dispute Resolution for Pathologists
The CAP also expressed support for the final bill. In a statement, CAP noted that “As the legislation evolved during the 116th Congress, CAP members met with their federal lawmakers to discuss the CAP’s policy priorities.
“Through the CAP’s engagement and collaboration with other physician associations, the legislation improved drastically,” the CAP stated. “Specifically, the CAP lobbied Congress to hold patients harmless, establish a fair reimbursement formula for services provided, deny insurers the ability to dictate payment, create an independent dispute resolution (IDR) process that pathologists can participate in, and require network adequacy standards for health insurers.”
As laboratory testing was identified by thousands of respondents to the University of Chicago survey as the top surprise bill, it is likely that billing and transparency in charges for clinical pathologist and anatomic pathologist will continue to be scrutinized by law makers and healthcare associations.
CAP president maintains medical laboratory staff are ‘indispensable’ in pandemic fight and should be in ‘top tier’ for vaccination
As COVID-19 vaccinations continue to roll out, the College of American Pathologists (CAP) is lobbying for clinical pathologists and medical laboratory staff to be moved up the priority list for vaccinations, stating they are “indispensable” in the pandemic fight.
In a news release, CAP’s President Patrick Godbey, MD, FCAP argued for the early vaccination of laboratory workers, “It is essential that early access to the vaccine be provided to all pathologists and laboratory personnel,” he said. “Pathologists have led throughout this pandemic by bringing tests for the coronavirus online in communities across the country and we must ensure that patient access to testing continues. We must also serve as a resource to discuss the facts about the vaccine and answer questions patients, family members, and friends have about why they should get the vaccine when it is available to them.”
In a phone call following a virtual press conference, pathologists and CAP President Patrick Godbey, MD (above), told MedPage Today that even if medical laboratory staff are not directly in contact with patients, they should be considered “top tier” (designated as Phase 1a) for getting the vaccine. “I think they [clinical laboratory workers] should be considered in the same tier as nurses,” said Godbey, who also is Laboratory Director at Southeastern Pathology Associates and Southeast Georgia Health System in Brunswick, Ga. “They’re indispensable. Without them, there’d be no one to run the tests.” (Photo copyright: Southeast Georgia Health System.)
Who Does CDC Think Should Be First to Be Vaccinated?
According toThe New York Times (NYT), there are an estimated 21 million healthcare workers in the United States, making it basically “impossible,” the NYT wrote, for them all to get vaccinated in the first wave of COVID-19 vaccinations.
A December 11, 2020, CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, titled, “ACIP Interim Recommendation for Allocating Initial Supplies of COVID-19 Vaccine—United States, 2020,” notes that “The [federal] Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommended, as interim guidance, that both 1) healthcare personnel and 2) residents of long-term care facilities be offered COVID-19 vaccine in the initial phase of the vaccination program.”
The ACIP report defines healthcare personnel as “paid and unpaid persons serving in healthcare settings who have the potential for direct or indirect exposure to patients or infectious materials.”
However, a CDC terminology guidance document listed at the bottom of the ACIP report states, “For this update, HCP [Healthcare Personnel] does not include dental healthcare personnel, autopsy personnel, and laboratory personnel, as recommendations to address occupational infection prevention and control (IPC) services for these personnel are posted elsewhere.”
In part, the letter stated, “We are convinced that ACIP did not intend to exclude any healthcare workers from its recommendation to offer vaccinations to healthcare personnel in the initial phase of the COVID-19 vaccination program (Phase 1a). However, we would hate for jurisdictions to overlook dental, autopsy, and laboratory personnel because of a minor footnote in [CDC] guidance that was developed for an entirely different purpose (i.e., infection control).
“We respectfully ask CDC to clarify,” the letter continues, “… that all healthcare workers—including dental, autopsy, and laboratory personnel—are among those who should be given priority access to vaccine during the initial phase of the COVID-19 vaccination program.”
“In the laboratory, they are encountering and handling thousands of samples that have active live virus in them,” said Karger, who called clinical laboratory staff and phlebotomists the “forgotten” frontline healthcare workers. “We’re getting 10,000 samples a day. That’s a lot of handling of infectious specimens, and we do want [staff] to be prioritized for vaccination.”
Karger continued to stress the vital role clinical laboratories play not only in COVID-19 testing but also in the functioning of the overall health system. She added that staff burnout is a concern since laboratory staff have been working “full throttle” since March.
“From an operational standpoint, we do need to keep our lab up and running,” she said. “We don’t want to have staff out such that we would have to decrease our testing capacity, which would have widespread impacts for our health system and state.”
Testing for Post-Vaccine Immunity
The CAP panelists also highlighted the need to prepare for the aftermath of widespread COVID-19 vaccinations—the need to test for post-vaccine immunity.
“It’s not routine practice to check antibody levels after getting a vaccine but given the heightened interest in COVID testing, we are anticipating there is going to be some increased in demand for post-vaccine antibody testing,” Karger said. “We’re at least preparing for that and preparing to educate our providers.”
Karger pointed out that clinical pathologists will play an important role in educating providers about the type of antibody tests necessary to test for COVID-19 immunity, because, she says, only the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein antibody test will check for an immune response.
With the pandemic expected to stretch far into 2021, clinical laboratories will continue to play a crucial role in the nation’s healthcare response to COVID-19. As essential workers in the fight against infectious disease, clinical pathologists, clinical chemists, and all medical laboratory staff should be prioritized as frontline healthcare workers.
