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Introduction Early detection of Alzheimer’s disease in a primary care setting has long been hindered by invasive procedures and limited access to specialty diagnostics. Now, the Elecsys® pTau181 test from Roche—an FDA-cleared Alzheimer’s blood test—offers primary care providers a practical tool to rule out Alzheimer’s-related amyloid pathology in patients aged 55 and older presenting
Addressing the Workforce and Staffing Crisis in Nursing Homes Introduction The U.S. nursing home sector is facing an unprecedented workforce and staffing crisis. With 99% of facilities reporting open positions and a 7.6% decline in workforce since 2020, nursing homes struggle to maintain mandated staff-to-resident ratios. High turnover, soaring agency staff costs, and widespread
Introduction Post-acute and skilled nursing centers face mounting pressures: staffing shortages, complex reimbursement changes, stringent regulatory requirements and growing cost constraints. As care models evolve, leaders must find innovative ways to maintain high-quality outcomes while optimizing operational efficiency. Fortunately, large language models in healthcare and agentic systems in healthcare are emerging as powerful cognitive
Aculabs is proud to share that our laboratory director, Rita Khoury, MD., recently had the opportunity to present several papers at the College of American Pathologists (CAP) 2025 meeting. While at the conference, Dr. Khoury sat down and spoke about her findings regarding Vitamin D testing with Medscape, a leading healthcare publication. "Orders for
UnitedHealthcare (UHC) has announced upcoming significant changes that will directly impact reimbursement for routine laboratory testing. Beginning December 1, 2025, UHC will implement new reimbursement policies for Commercial, Individual Family Plans, and Medicare Advantage Plans. Per UnitedHealthcare's Reimbursement Policy Update Bulletin for September 2025 :Effective December 1, 2025, UnitedHealthcare will apply automated post-service, pre-payment policy enforcement to
It is becoming clear that Medicare Advantage (MA) plans are systematically limiting access to laboratory testing through prior authorization requirements, creating a two-tiered healthcare system where beneficiaries face barriers that traditional Medicare patients never encounter. Prior authorization barriers create diagnostic delays, and the scope of this problem has exploded over the past decade. What
The routine use of molecular urine testing - particularly multiplex PCR assays - for diagnosing UTIs in nursing homes has become increasingly controversial. A recent McKnight’s article highlights a call on providers to stop using routine PCR urine tests for UTIs, "the most common infection in nursing homes," citing patient safety concerns, escalating costs,
Aculabs is proud to share that we have once again passed our re-inspection by the College of American Pathologists (CAP), maintaining our status as a fully accredited clinical laboratory. Did you know? "On-site inspections occur every two years using CAP Accreditation Checklists to assess compliance with program requirements." "Built on a foundation of pathologist
At Aculabs, we understand how crucial accurate diagnosis coding is to the success of claims submission and timely reimbursement. Unfortunately, we are seeing an increasing number of claim denials from payors due to the use of "invalid" primary diagnosis codes. What Are Invalid Primary Diagnosis Codes? An "invalid" primary diagnosis code typically refers to one that
On July 23, 2024, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a Health Alert Network (HAN) message to inform healthcare providers, laboratory professionals, healthcare facility administrators, and health departments about a critical shortage of Becton Dickinson (BD) BACTEC blood culture media bottles. BD Diagnostics, Inc. has reported an interruption in the