It was a close call for the laboratory industry last week. An economic stimulus bill in the Senate included a provision that would have imposed the application of beneficiary co-insurance and Part B deductible for clinical laboratory services. The stated justification for this provision was that it would create budget savings to offset increased Medicare payments to rural providers. Lab industry insiders close to the Washington legislative action tell The Dark Report that lawmakers decided an economic stimulus bill was not the place to try and insert provisions to increase Medicare funding to rural providers. So that language was dropped from the bill that eventually passed the Senate.

Since the 20% co-payment requirement was eliminated in the late 1980s (as part of a deal to offset other Medicare cuts in reimbursement for Part B laboratory testing services), initiatives to reinstitute the 20% co-payment surface regularly. For this to happen, it means that one or more individuals within Congress and/or the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) are convinced this is a way to reduce Medicare costs, regardless of its economic impact on the clinical laboratory industry.

Who are these individuals? Are they known to the lab industry lobbyists in Washington, DC? Over the years, I've never read an analysis or commentary about proposals to reinstitute the 20% co-payment which identify specific CMS officials and legislative aides to Senators and Representatives who are the prime movers behind such proposals.

I suggest that it is timely for the collective laboratory industry to adopt a different lobbying strategy. Let's publicly identify those individuals committed to reinstituting Part B co-payments. Let's invite them to lab industry meetings to explain, from a public podium, why the 20% co-pay is such a good idea. Let them circulate and network at these meetings and hear, first-hand, the problems resulting from a reinstituted co-pay. Have them tour real lab to directly experience the challenges of billing charges less than $10 and $20. I think it's time to effectively educate the root source of these unceasing efforts to reinstitute the Medicare Part B laboratory services co-pay.

New Lab Management Directions Now Visible

Lab War College reveals that early-adopter lab directors are embracing"new" methods

CEO SUMMARY: Seat-of-the-pants laboratory management is on its way out, replaced by numbers-driven methods. Judging by the presentations given at this year's Executive War College on Lab and Pathology Management, a growing number of laboratory administrators and pathologists are actively introducing quality management methods into their laboratory operations and generating remarkable results.

Health Lawyers News Attacks Path Part A

Triggered by debate on a lawyers listserv, story attempts to address key issues

CEO SUMMARY: Pathologists should take time to read the cover story in the May 2003 issue of Health Lawyers News. Although the story nominally addresses questions involving how hospitals should reimburse physicians for administrative duties, it deals mostly with clinical pathology services and makes representations about the work pathologists do which some legal experts call factually and legally wrong.

SARS Update

Focus Technologies Offers SARS Test to Clinicians

CEO SUMMARY: There's a story behind the story at HealthcheckUSA, one of the nation's best-known sources offering consumers direct access to laboratory testing. Its primary business is holding community screens and grocery store lab testing programs throughout the United States. Because it is a middleman, HealthcheckUSA farms out the actual testing to contract laboratories.

Lab Market Milestone: Conventional Needle Sales To End at Becton Dickinson

Event marks a shift in healthcare technology and clinical practices in favor of patient safety

Con Man Rips Off Lab In Kingsport, Tennessee

MEDex Labs' CEO discovered to be unrepentant, twice-convicted felon

CEO SUMMARY: It will certainly rank as one of the major executive frauds in the clinical laboratory industry. In the wake of MEDex Laboratories' Chapter 11 Bankruptcy filing in April, an amazing tale of deceit and deception began unfolding. At the center of the story is ex-MEDex CEO Michael E. Ladd, now cooling his heels in a Greeneville, Tennessee jail and facing eight federal criminal charges.

INTELLIGENCE:

New Outbreak Of SARS Hits Toronto Hospitals

"Syndromic Surveillance"