This is a companion article to the feature, “Laboratory Data in ACO Environments.”
LabCorp is getting in the game of population health management—quickly. In its negotiations with a large physician group ACO, LabCorp included a multimillion-dollar investment in a spin-off of this physician group that specializes in population health analytics. The physician group already contracts with LabCorp, sending a sizable testing business to LabCorp, but LabCorp made the investment in a separate deal. “LabCorp thinks it is a potentially profitable business model,” said an executive from the ACO.
In another example, LabCorp proposed to a health system ACO that it will analyze the laboratory data for the ACO to identify patients at high risk of developing chronic renal failure. LabCorp proposed to analyze the data for all tests performed by LabCorp as well as tests performed by other laboratories at no cost.
“We know this is an expensive disease to manage in an ACO,” said the CMO of the health system. “The predictive analytics service provided by LabCorp will be used to identify care gaps, develop care plans for high-risk renal patients, and more effectively manage population health.”
Some ACOs are receiving complimentary data analytics tools from large independent laboratories as part of their contracts. An executive from a physician group ACO said that LabCorp and Quest have been supporting the ACO by providing incentives for physicians to report data, and then giving the ACO tools for doing analytics. “Their contracts have started to include tools that you otherwise would have to purchase from somewhere else,” said the executive.
