New business model for medical billing companies
By Mick Raich
The key in any industry is to make a margin — that difference between cost and revenue, the part you get to take home every two weeks so little Tommy can have a new iPad. As change takes place, companies that fall short of this margin inevitably fail. They may leverage themselves with loans or lower their costs by decreasing output, but sooner or later the bills have to be paid. In the medical billing industry, companies have literally searched far and wide for this margin. Over the past 10 years we have seen considerable use of Business Process Outsourcing firms that handle various parts of the billing process overseas.
'Genetic Testing Handbook' provides pathologists, lab managers with comprehensive reference for clinical genome and exome sequencing
Dark Daily
Clinical use of gene sequencing information has advanced to the point where a team of genetic experts has compiled and issued the Genetic Testing Handbook. The goal of the clinical genome and exome sequencing (CGES) handbook is to provide clinicians — including pathologists and clinical laboratory scientists — with a useful reference tool.
You are invited to FSP's 41st Annual Anatomic Pathology Conference
FSP
It will be another Sensational program featuring presentations on cutting edge pathology topics. Click here for more information and to register.
To find patients at highest risk, hospitals combine consumer data with clinical information
Dark Daily
Big data is all the rage in healthcare these days. However, one interesting development in this field is how hospitals are integrating consumer data with clinical data to identify patients at high risk. For example, if the post-surgical heart patient buys a package of cigarettes, some hospitals say they want to know. This is a trend with interesting implications for clinical laboratories.
A fast-growing medical lab tests anti-kickback law
The Wall Street Journal
A fast-growing Virginia laboratory has collected hundreds of millions of dollars from Medicare while using a strategy that is now under regulatory scrutiny: It paid doctors who sent it patients' blood for testing. Health Diagnostic Laboratory Inc. transformed itself from a startup incorporated in late 2008 into a major lab with $383 million in 2013 revenues, 41 percent of that from Medicare.
Study: Many patients don't understand electronic lab results
EHR Intelligence
More and more patients may be accessing their personal health information online through patient portals thanks to stage 2 of meaningful use, but only slightly more than half of patients, on average, were able to decipher electronic lab test results on their own, says a study from the University of Michigan. Patients who scored on the lower end of numerical and health literacy tests were twice as likely to express confusion when shown a hypothetical blood glucose test result, said study author Brian Zikmund-Fisher, associate professor of health behavior and health education at the U-M School of Public Health.
Study: 5 percent of patients in outpatient settings misdiagnosed, offering pathologists opportunity to provide more consultations to doctors
Dark Daily
Publication of new peer-reviewed clinical studies indicates that, within the United States, more than 5 percent of outpatients, or 12 million people, are misdiagnosed annually. Few pathologists and clinical laboratory scientists would dispute this number because every day they see the best and the worst of how physicians use medical laboratory tests.
Gov. Scott: Fee reductions for healthcare professionals
Florida Governor's Press Office
Governor Rick Scott announced fee reductions for the licensing of certain healthcare professionals. Due to efficiencies found and the streamlining of processes, both the Florida Board of Medicine and Florida Board of Nursing identified excess fees and are passing this on as a cost savings to licensees.
Will CMS exempt pathologists from meaningful use penalties?
EHR Intelligence
Pathologists may be used to seeking out irregularities under the microscope, but with the support of Congress, they might also be staring at a relief from the financial penalties incurred by non-participation in the EHR Incentive Programs. With cuts to Medicare payments soon to begin for those who do not attest to meaningful use, the College of American Pathologists is arguing for an expansion of the hardship exemption to include immunity to future payment reductions in a letter to CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner.
OIG issues fraud alert for physician-lab relationships
Jessica Belle
The Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General recently issued a special fraud alert that singles out the laboratory-referring physician relationship for its focused attention. The OIG has repeatedly emphasized that a lab providing free or below-market goods or services to a physician who is a source of referrals, or paying a physician more than fair market value for his or her services, could constitute illegal remuneration under the federal anti-kickback statute. In light of this special fraud alert, physicians and laboratories should review their compensation arrangements.
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