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What Kind Of Company Is 23andMe?
A study led by researchers at the genetic testing lab company Invitae (SanFrancisco, CA) found that 23andMe’s direct-to-consumer BRCA test forhereditary breast cancer misses almost 90% of BRCA mutation carriers. 23andMe has been criticized for offering the test...
Largest Nursing Home Lab Company Seeks Bankruptcy Reorganization
Trident Holding Company (Sparks, MD), the nation’s largest nursing home lab operator, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in the Southern District of New York on February 11. Trident, which employs 4,500 full-time workers and 660 people part time, provides...
Many Hospital Labs Still Don’t Know They Must Report PAMA Data
On January 22, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) hosted a teleconference that focused on a new rule that requires nearly all hospital outreach labs to collect their private-payer payment data from January 1 to June 30, 2019, and report it to CMS...
Special New Year’s Report: Lab Execs Share Outlook for 2019
For an inside look at what may be in store for the clinical lab and pathology business this year, Laboratory Economics interviewed the top executives at a diverse group of 10 lab companies. Not surprisingly, our interviews revealed that commercial insurers are using...
Does New Far-Reaching Anti-Kickback Law Apply To All Labs?
Hastily passed opioid legislation, signed into law by President Trump on October 24, outlaws the use of volume-based compensation for laboratory sales reps, regardless of the type of testing involved. The new law, Section 8122 of the “Eliminating Kickbacks in Recovery...
GAO Warns Of Increased Costs From Unbundling Panel Tests
A new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has zeroed in on the unbundling of common panel tests as a practice that could cause Medicare to overpay billions under PAMA’s new market-based CLFS. The potential for overpayment stems from a loophole...
UltraClinics Aims to Spread Telepathology
UltraClinics Inc. (Tucson, AZ) has begun marketing a telepathology service that will allow diagnostic imaging centers and outpatient surgery centers to offer their patients same-day anatomic pathology reports from on-site tissue biopsies, Ronald Weinstein, M.D., 67,...
Redwood Toxicology Sold For 3.3x Revenue
The investment firm American Capital Strategies (Bethesda, MD) has paid $79.5 million for a 67% stake in Redwood Toxicology Laboratory (Santa Rosa, CA). Redwood’s management team, including chief executive and founder Bob Mount, owns the remaining 33%. The deal, which...