[Histonet] Aetna and In-Office Lab Accreditation

[Nicole Tatum]

Well Said



 To suggest that any physician who goes into private practice and has their
> own lab is any more of a money hound than any other physician at a
> hospital would also be disingenuous . And of course this is about money.
> It's about one group of people trying to get another group of people out
> of the lab business because they want that money. It's also about the
> government squeezing insurance companies into these more stringent
> regulations. Now I'm not against more stringent regulations but I do find
> it offensive of how they are going about it. The little guy will take the
> hits on this one. I guess what they want is a bunch of walmart like labs.
> Private practices serve a patient care cause just as hospital labs do.
> They all make a diagnosis.  They all deserve to be paid.
>
> My 2 cents
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Apr 9, 2012, at 4:47 PM, Daniel Schneider <dlschneider <@t> gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> This is all about the money. The rest is rationalization.
>>
>> The reason a group of non-pathologist physicians opens an in-house
>> pathology lab and hires an employee pathologist is first and foremost
>> to harvest profit from pathology reimbursement. Be a fly on the wall in
>> the
>> partners' meetings and you would know that's what they are talking
>> about.
>>
>> To suggest otherwise is disingenuous.
>>
>> And the implication that the generalist anatomic pathologist is
>> unqualified
>> to be signing out skins, prostates, GI's and whatever is reprehensible.
>> This is not cardiac bypass surgery, and AP pathologists *are* trained to
>> do
>> all of the above. I eagerly defer to subspecialty expert consultants as
>> needed, but most of the time they're not needed.
>>
>> Hospital labs that see few, if any skins, prostates, GI's, are only in
>> that
>> pickle because of the cherrypicking they've already been subjected to.
>>
>> *"in-office AP labs are an emerging frontier of employment for
>> histologists
>> and pathologists.  In an era of high unemployment, another source of
>> employment for our professions is "a good thing.""*
>>
>> Really? The jobs follow the specimens. Given the same number of
>> specimens,
>> there's the same number of jobs, more or less, just under different
>> circumstances and in different locations   Unless you're suggesting that
>> in-office labs will generate increased specimens, and thus increased
>> jobs
>> though overutilization, i.e. excessive numbers of unnecessary biopsies
>> and
>> abuse of the patient and the taxpayer.  In which case I have to say
>> there's
>> a grain of truth. And the truth hurts.  And it's not " a good thing."
>>
>> None of this should be taken as criticism of histotechs and pathologists
>> who find themselves working in an in-office lab. I know there's bills to
>> pay, families to take care of, and god knows it's hard for a pathologist
>> to
>> find a job these days with the numbers our residency programs keep
>> churning
>> out (but that's another rant...).
>>
>> Dan Schneider, MD
>> Amarillo, TX
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Apr 9, 2012 at 12:52 PM, <jdcochran <@t> aol.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Histonetters:
>>>
>>> In-office AP labs provide a valuable service to the practices they
>>> serve
>>> by facilitating 1) better communication between pathologists and
>>> ordering
>>> clinicians, 2) quality metrics that are practice-specific, and 3) high
>>> volume, sub-specialization for both histotechnologists and
>>> pathologists.
>>> In other words, the more of one type of histopathology a lab does
>>> (e.g.,
>>> skin, prostate, GI), the better it gets.  Most people would not think
>>> of
>>> having their cardiac bypass surgery done at a community hospital doing
>>> 50/year; you want to go where more than 500/year are done.  In
>>> histopathology, the kinds of volume you want are in the thousands for
>>> each
>>> tissue type.  Many hospital labs do little skin or prostate histology
>>> anymore.  Many sub-specialty in-office AP labs may do thousands of
>>> cases of
>>> one tissue type every year.
>>>
>>> Aside from that, in-office AP labs are an emerging frontier of
>>> employment
>>> for histologists and pathologists.  In an era of high unemployment,
>>> another
>>> source of employment for our professions is "a good thing."
>>>
>>> This requirement by an insurer for accreditation will help to validate
>>> these in-office AP labs' commitment to quality and put them on the
>>> level
>>> with their hospital counterparts.
>>>
>>> John D. Cochran, MD, FCAP
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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