New Year, Familiar Themes
Scott Adams
2018 is starting out with the same types of change, partnerships, and consolidation we’ve seen the last five years. Which leads me to believe you will have great opportunities to help your clients improve their businesses by educating them on all the changes happening.
One of the big stories this year will be the launch of PAMA, which cuts diagnostic testing reimbursement for Medicare. Many of your clients may still be unaware of the reform, and it can be very scary when they learn about it. In December, I did a two-part podcast on the subject, sponsored by Sekisui. The first part was with Mark Zacur, Vice President and GM at Fisher Healthcare, while the second part was with Repertoire’s newest columnist, Jim Poggi, formerly with McKesson’s lab team.
Mark spoke to how PAMA will affect health systems.While Medicare pays $7 billion in lab test reimbursement, he said $2 billion of it is across only five tests.To learn what those five tests are, go to Repertoire’s website and listen to the podcast. There is enough content in the podcast to make you conversational on PAMA with any lab tech.
Jim spoke to PAMA and how it will affect you, as well as how you can use it to your benefit to help your customers. One of the key takeaways from Jim’s comments was the increased focus on molecular. If you want to learn more about molecular testing and how to position it, take a look at the advertisers in this issue, and look up their 2-Minute Drills in RepConnect. These short videos will help you feel comfortable discussing these tests, and hopefully help you sell more lab in 2018.
We saw two partnerships at the end of the year that will be fun to watch as well. Midmark and Heine is one, and we conducted a live interview with each company that can be found on the Repertoire website. The second partnership was between Sekisui and (?). It looks like 2018 will be another year of mergers, partnerships, and consolidation.
I point out the partnerships and PAMA because it’s where we are today in our industry. Change is constant, and we have to embrace it.As Don Draper said in an episode of Mad Men:
“Change is neither good or bad, it simply is. It can be greeted with either terror or joy. A tantrum that says I want it the way it was or a dance that says, look something new.”
Amid all the change, there is an opportunity for you to win the day with your customers. Embrace the change in 2018.