[Histonet] 88305TC starting to hit the fan...
The news about the decrease of the 88305TC medicaire reimbursement fee was just announced at my lab finally. This of course struck fear in the entire lab workforce because it's clear some major belt-tightening will have to be done, and it's most likely to hurt everybody. Costs and probably hours will have to be reduced it seems clear. Isn't the finaly figure for this cut (%) supposed to be announced today? I have heard anywhere from 20 to 52% is possible? This will give a final measure as to how many belt loops we'll have to cinch-in... Anybody else out there starting to feel the pain in their labs yet? FREE ONLINE PHOTOSHARING - Share your photos online with your friends and family! Visit http://www.inbox.com/photosharing to find out more! ___ Histonet mailing list Histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu http://lists.utsouthwestern.edu/mailman/listinfo/histonet
Re: [Histonet] The Rise of Physician Owned/Operated Labs (POLs) and future trends
!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC -//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN Mrs. Buesa, I sincerely hope you are not pointing = to me as trying to foment some kind of fear to drive voting in one = direction or another. I did state in my original post that I = hoped we could avoid the political vitriol, but I guess because the future = is somewhat foggy as to what is going to happen, I should have just left = out mention of political parties/presidents in my original post. = We're mere days away from the final reconning, so if people haven't done = their due diligence and research on each candidate and the issues we're = facing, basing your decision on some comments on a forum might be a poor = way to base such an important decision. The trending in POL's is = currently having a DIRECT effect on my employment situation, so that was = the motivation for my original post.I would like to = understand the landscape and ecosystem of private labs, POL's, large = references labs and the like, and I am only just starting to understand = the labrynth that is the medicaire billing system.How this = all plays out is going to effect us all directly, so it is I guess = understandable that opinions and emotions almost can't be filtered out of = the discussion. Our livelihoods are on the line. My sincere = appologies though if I have ruffled too many feathers here. I was merely looking for deeper insight and = knowledge into the topic.One topic that seems to have been = raised though, and wich I tend to agree, is there is some bloat, or = overinflation of procedures going on, which cuts to the heart of the issue = -- monetary incentives to inflate charges and thus revenue, especially if = Pathologists are now able to get an extra cut of the lab-fees involved.Personally I don't think it's a bad idea at all to scrutinize very closely what is going on with this, even if it upsets the = balance and flows of money... if it leads to a more efficient and just = system. _ [1]3DSmileys Get Free Smileys for Your IM =Email - Learn more at [2]www.crawler.com/smileys Works with AIM®, = MSN® Messenger, Yahoo!^® Messenger, ICQ®, Google Talk(TM) and most webmails References 1. 3Dhttp://www.inbox.com/smileys; 2. 3Dhttp://www.crawler.com/smileys; ___ Histonet mailing list Histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu http://lists.utsouthwestern.edu/mailman/listinfo/histonet
[Histonet] The Rise of Physician Owned/Operated Labs (POLs) and future trends
Does anybody care to posit ideas about how this next election cycle will effect the POL (Physician Owned/Operated Labs) trend?I know that opinions on either major candidate can be emmotional and fire up the vitriol, but that is not what I'm looking for and would wish to ask for as much of a clinical dissection about what might happen in terms of regulation of this growning trend depending on which party/president wins the election. Also factored into the question perhaps is what will be happening with Medicaire and the insurance industry in future. Currently the private lab I work at has seen some errosion of daily intake to at least a few doctors who have set up their own labs.One of them was even bold enough to send one of their medical or nursing assistant staff to tour our lab and have a tour and crash-course in histology and equipment needed. I couldn't quite believe out management even let her in the door!? Anyway... either due to the economy or errosion to these in house set-ups (or both)... it seems like our daily block count has been reduced by about half in the last three to four years.The management seem to be waiting it out for the election to play out to decide their next moves. I think the reasoning is that either one president/administration or the other will influence the regulation of the growing POL trend. If it becomes much more restricted and scrutinzed, they think this will cause a flow of work back to them because the docs will not be able to refer and process their own cases any more. At least I think that's the gist of it. In the meantime I'm quite frustrated because biz is down and it's effecting my future prospects and growth there. Effectively we've had no raises in more than a few years, positions have been downsized, and schedules gone whacky and undesireable. Things just seem to be getting worse and smaller rather than growing and better. OK, hopefully this stirs up some interest in a conversation, or perhaps even just some emails, links, tips about other forums, or further reading I can do on this topic. Thanks. FREE 3D MARINE AQUARIUM SCREENSAVER - Watch dolphins, sharks orcas on your desktop! Check it out at http://www.inbox.com/marineaquarium ___ Histonet mailing list Histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu http://lists.utsouthwestern.edu/mailman/listinfo/histonet
