Jan 9, 2012 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
In the first significant clinical laboratory acquisition of 2012, Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (NYSE: DGX) acquired S.E.D. Medical Laboratories of Albuquerque, New Mexico, from Lovelace Health System. The transaction was announced on January 3, 2012, and the sale was completed just days later, on January 7.
Along with acquiring a 50,000 square foot lab facility in Albuquerque, Quest Diagnostics picks up nine patient service centers (PSCs) in Albuquerque and Rio Rancho, plus six additional PSCs throughout the state. S.E.D. Medical Labs employees 450 people and performs about 7.5 million tests per year.
Quest Diagnostics Will Manage Four Inpatient Clinical Laboratories
One interesting aspect to the sale is the fact that Quest Diagnostics will manage the inpatient laboratories at four hospitals owned by Lovelace Health System. It will also provide medical laboratory testing services to members of the Lovelace Health Plan. (more…)
Nov 14, 2011 | Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Sales and Marketing
Two Senate committees seem interested in how certain medical laboratories offer discounted laboratory test prices to selected health insurers
Is it a coincidence that discounted medical laboratory test pricing offered by the nation’s two largest clinical laboratory companies appears to now be the subject of interest for the Senate Judiciary and Senate Finance Committees? Last Tuesday, Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana) and Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) issued a press release titled “Grassley, Baucus Scrutinize Practice by Health Insurers and Testing Labs.”
Baucus is Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and Grassley is the Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Together, these two Senators sent letters last week to two clinical laboratory companies and three big health insurance firms: (more…)
Oct 12, 2011 | Laboratory News, Uncategorized
Deal may be just the first of more clinical laboratory acquisitions in the U.S by Japan’s largest medical lab testing company
Pathology and clinical laboratory testing companies continue to go global and last week’s big acquisition in anatomic pathology gave one of Japan’s biggest clinical laboratory companies an important foothold in the United States.
Miraca Holdings Inc. (TYO: 4544.T) of Tokyo, Japan, announced that it would acquire the anatomic pathology business of Caris Life Sciences, Inc., of Irving, Texas. Miraca says the purchase is the first ever by a Japanese company of a clinical laboratory testing company in the United States.
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Sep 30, 2011 | Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations
Medical laboratories and pathology groups lose access to tissue specimens when office-based physicians operate their own in-clinic pathology laboratory
One trend reshaping the profession of anatomic pathology with surprising speed is the growth of in-clinic pathology laboratories by specialist physicians. As each office-based physician group builds its own in-clinic pathology laboratory, local pathology groups and medical laboratories lose access to the tissue specimens these doctors now process in their own pathology lab.
This trend has significant consequences for the nation’s 3,300 pathology group practices, as well as those national pathology and clinical laboratory companies that compete for the biopsy tissue referrals of office-based physicians. Losing access to the tissue referrals of local physicians makes it tougher for local pathologists to develop a broad range of experience and skills.
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Jun 10, 2011 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
Clinical laboratory outreach program at Catholic Medical Center sees new lab competitors entering the Manchester market
DATELINE: MANCHESTER, NEW HAMPSHIRE—Here in the Granite State, clinical laboratories and pathology groups must respond to a growing number of healthcare market trends. This was obvious to your Dark Daily Editor during his site visit earlier this week to the medical laboratory at Catholic Medical Center, which is one of Manchester’s major hospitals.
Often, states with relatively small populations, like New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine, have the luxury of watching the latest healthcare trends emerge first in the major urban centers like Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. However, the accelerating pace of change across all of healthcare is changing that situation.
In Manchester, New Hampshire, competition among hospitals in the community is quite intense. According to Roberta E. Provencal, Director of Laboratory Services at Catholic Medical Center, there is equally intense competition in the outreach market for both clinical laboratory testing and anatomic pathology services. “Manchester has about 110,000 people, and there are 1.3 million in all of New Hampshire,” observed Provencal. “Yet, even though these are not large healthcare markets, we have more lab competitors marketing to doctors’ offices in our city than at any time in the past 20 years. (more…)
