[Histonet] IHC cost-effectiveness

[Rene J Buesa]

Carlos:
It will all depend on your volume and the variety of antigens you are trying to detect. What I would never recommend are specific kits for specific antigens, that will be a waste.
You could have diluted antibodies and detection kits that could be used will all your antigens. In that way  the expense will be less.
If you increase your work volume you could even go to concentrates and prepare your own dilutions.
René J.

--- On Thu, 3/4/10, Carlos Rodriguez, MD <cfrmd1 <@t> gmail.com> wrote:


From: Carlos Rodriguez, MD <cfrmd1 <@t> gmail.com>
Subject: [Histonet] IHC cost-effectiveness
To: histonet <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu
Date: Thursday, March 4, 2010, 6:51 PM


Hi everyone

These questions are primarily for those people who currently work in, or
have experience in private practices (derm, GI) that have in-house path
labs.

For IHC, how cost-effective is it to do immunos in-house *using kits*? No
immunostainer would be available. I imagine it's substantially more
expensive than doing H&E and special stains. Also, how many slides can a
typical single kit be used for, and how time-consuming is the actual process
of manual IHC staining?

Lastly, do practices run into problems sending cases out to larger labs for
the TC of immunostains, and then doing the read (PC) themselves in-house? Do
insurers or CMS disallows this practice or not reimburse 2 separate billers
for the same case?

Thanks very much.

Carlos Rodriguez, MD
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