Mar 31, 2014 | Coding, Billing, and Collections, Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Hiring & Human Resources, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Managed Care Contracts & Payer Reimbursement, Management & Operations, News From Dark Daily
Failing finances at technical pathology laboratories may be the most immediate concern for many pathology group practices
Many clinical laboratories and anatomic pathology groups now recognize the new reality of the American healthcare system: less reimbursement for laboratory testing. On one hand, the fee-for-service prices for lab tests paid by government and private payers have been aggressively slashed.
On the other hand, all payers have become stubbornly resistant to issuing coverage guidelines and setting adequate prices for the flood of new molecular assays and gene tests coming to market.
These trends have already brought a handful of medical laboratories and pathology practices to the point of bankruptcy, sale, or closure. This is definitely true for the technical laboratories owned by many local pathology groups, which have become unprofitable due to fee cuts. (See below.) (more…)
Aug 18, 2009 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations, News From Dark Daily
Hospital labs come in under budget—while still improving quality, service, and revenue
Despite the recession, most first-rank hospital and health system laboratories in the United States remain upbeat about the financial integrity of their organization and their ability to negotiate the deepest economic recession since 1981-82. One reason this is true is the use of Lean, Six Sigma, and similar continuous improvement methods in the nation’s most progressive clinical labs and pathology groups.
Unlike the recession of 28 years ago, clinical laboratories today can use their experienced Lean teams to trim costs without comparable reductions in quality or service. Not surprisingly, clinical laboratories were quick to recognize how, during this economic recession, their existing Lean and process improvement programs could be tweaked with minimal effort to produce maximum operational savings. Thus, hospital labs during the past 12 months have been able to cut significant cost from their operations without any compromise in quality or the level of service they deliver to referring physicians.
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May 6, 2009 | Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory Pathology
Baystate harvests annual savings of 20%+ from simple strategies and steps
In today’s depressed economy, hospital laboratories are scrambling to control costs, reduce unnecessary spending, and get more for every dollar they spend. That is why the constantly-rising cost of reference tests and send-out referrals are now a prime target for laboratory budget-cutters across the United States.
Every laboratory’s reference/send-out test program is a potential budget-buster, for three reasons familiar to every lab director.
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