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By subscribing to Laboratory Industry Report, each month you'll get an insider's view of the lab industry's most important business and financial trends, plus predictions for the coming year.
In each issue, you find:
- Comparative data on lab pricing
- Information and explanations describing how to deal with healthcare integration, capitation, technology advances, etc.
- Clear perspectives of how your firm is performing vs. the market at large How publicly-traded lab companies are performing and what their top executives earn
- Updates on late-breaking mergers & acquisitions.
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 | LIR September 2008 (full PDF issue) |
| TOP OF THE NEWS
Quest, LabCorp report Q2 revenues
LabCorp acquires Stanford outreach
LEGISLATIVE UPDATE
Bill seeks to overhaul lab fee schedule
INDUSTRY NEWS
ViraCor looking for 35% growth in ’09
UroPath acquired by HealthTronics
THE IT PERSPECTIVE
Labs struggle with EMRs
INSIDE THE LAB INDUSTRY
Leasing rates up to between 6% and 8.75%
DTC TESTING UPDATE
California issues licenses
FINANCIAL
Lab index up 7% over 5 weeks
INDUSTRY BUZZ
Independent labs ineligible for PQRI
Full Article |
| LabCorp Finalizes Stanford Outreach Acquisition for Rumored $30 Million |
| Expanding its presence in northern California, LabCorp (Burlington, N.C.) has paid a rumored $30 million to acquire Stanford Hospital & Clinics basic outreach testing services, which has a reported annual revenue of $30 million. The acquisition includes patient service centers, as well as rapid response laboratories throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, although Stanford officials wouldn’t disclose exactly how many of these facilities were included in the acquisition.
Full Article |
| Bad Debt, Weak Volumes Force Lower ’08 Guidance for LabCorp Despite Revenue Rise of 10%, Quest Up 12% |
| While Quest’s second quarter revenues were up 12 percent to $1.8 billion and LabCorp’s were up 10 percent to $1.1 billion, Wall Street analysts were dismayed by LabCorp’s (Burlington, N.C.) increase in bad debt to 5.28 percent and the addition of $45 million to the allowance for doubtful accounts. Blaming the slowing economy, LabCorp executives indicated that higher patient copays and reduced collection of self-insured payments are driving the bad-debt increase. In addition, volume growth was relatively flat compared to the first quarter at 1.4 percent (and 1.3 percent in the second quarter of 2007), forcing LabCorp to lower its 2008 revenue guidance to 10.3 percent to 11.3 percent from the original projections of 13 percent to 14 percent.
Full Article |
| Legislative Update: New House Bill Seeks to Overhaul Lab Fee Schedule |
| In late July, the Medicare Clinical Diagnostic Laboratory Fee Schedule Modernization Act of 2008 (H.R. 6761) was introduced by Reps. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and Michael Burgess (R-Texas) to reform the present lab fee system. The goal is to develop a single national Part B lab fee schedule for use in all lab settings, based on the value of the testing and the resources required, plus an adjustment for geographic cost differences. While lab industry groups generally acknowledge that the current lab fee schedule is inadequate and inefficient, especially in pricing new tests such as molecular diagnostics and other gene- or protein-based procedures, some are warning that switching to a different payment method could be problematic. But two leading industry groups—the Clinical Laboratory Management Association (CLMA) and the American Society of Clinical Laboratory Scientists—are working to secure support from other members of the Clinical Laboratory Coalition. In a statement supporting the bill, CLMA said, "The Medicare lab fee schedule was adopted in 1984 and has not been subject to a fundamental review and updating since then to reflect changes in the delivery of clinical lab medicine, resulting in real reductions in reimbursement."
Full Article |
| Pod Lab UroPath Acquired by HealthTronics for $7.5 Million |
| Following CMS’s implementation on "pod" lab restrictions earlier this year, one of the country’s largest pod lab companies, UroPath (Arlington, Texas), has been acquired by HealthTronics (Austin, Texas), a provider of urological services, equipment, and technologies. HealthTronics also operates an anatomic pathology lab, ClariPath, in Augusta, Ga.
Full Article |
| ViraCor Labs Expecting 35% Rev Growth to $27 Million in 2009 |
| With its strategy focused on offering 24-hour turnaround time, the molecular diagnostic testing provider ViraCor Reference Lab (Kansas City, Mo.) is expecting revenues to climb to a $27 million in 2009, up 35 percent from this year’s revenue total of $20 million, company Vice President Bob Wilhelm explained at the American Association of Clinical Chemistry’s Annual Meeting and Clinical Expo, held July 27-31 in Washington, D.C.
Full Article |
| EMRs Falling Short in the Lab as Push Continues for $100+ Billion Nationwide Network |
| Estimates for a nationwide adoption of electronic medical/health records (EMRs, EHRs) currently range from between $114 billion and $150 billion, even though there is evidence that a majority of U.S. physicians are not using even basic EMRs. In fact, a recent survey published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that only 4 percent of physicians had an extensive, fully functional EHR system, and only 13 percent had even a basic system.
Full Article |
| Inside the Lab Industry: Bait and Switch an Issue as Lab Equipment Leasing Rates Climb |
| Amidst rising delinquencies and dropping volumes, the current tight credit environment is hitting the health care sector of the leasing market hard, according to Duane Rouba, managing partner of Leasing Partners Capital (Wayne, N.J.). This means that labs currently looking to lease equipment, computer systems, or anything else to expand operations will need to fully comprehend the complexities of this market, as well as be prepared for their finances to face greater scrutiny in order to get the best interest rates.
Full Article |
| Navigenics, 23andMe Now Licensed to Test in California |
| Personal genomic testing companies 23andMe (Mountain View, Calif.) and Navigenics (Redwood Shores, Calif.) have reportedly received licenses from the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) and are allowed to continue to do business in the state. Calls to the companies, as well as to the CDPH, were not returned by press time.
Full Article |
| Lab Stocks Showing Gains; Up 7% Over 5 Weeks, Up 4% for Year |
| Showing signs of strength, the G-2 Laboratory Index is up 7 percent over the past five weeks for the week ended August 15, and 4 percent so far in 2008. Over the past 13 weeks, the 14 publicly traded labs tracked by the Index are up 11 percent. But the same can’t be said for the Nasdaq and S&P 500, which continue to decline. The Nasdaq is down 8.3 percent and the S&P 500 is down 12.19 percent so far in 2008.
Full Article |
| Independent Labs Ineligible for CMS’s PQRI Program |
| Pathologists employed by independent laboratories are not eligible for incentive payments through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’s (CMS) Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI), LIR has learned from Pathology Services Associates, LLC (PSA), a business support company for labs and pathology practices.
Full Article |
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