We're not reinventing the wheel. We're just changing the tires.
Bring your laboratory into your business
With Vanguard Lab Partners
What We Do
Vanguard analyzes your medical practice's laboratory activity and designs your lab solution specifically to your needs and opportunities.
Vanguard offers Turn-key laboratory solutions
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Cost and benefit analysis
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Project planning and execution
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Licensing and staffing
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Lab data integration and management
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Revenue cycle support
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Inspection management
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Ongoing consultation and support
How We Do It
Take a deep dive into the cost/benefit realities of expanding or operating your own laboratory, and explore ways to maximize your return.
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We explore your true revenue opportunities. We explore the most logical revenue pathway and evaluate the likely CPT coding, reimbursement rules, your carrier contract coverages and exclusions.
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Next we project your expenses: bad debt, projected labor costs, supplies, data costs, licensing and any anticipated logistics costs.
Our budgeting and financial planning tools will give you the closest and most realistic outlook for your laboratory. The data will give your practice the best idea on your true return on your investment and inform you of the likely financial reality.
Protecting Your Investment
Understanding how the revenue cycle works is critical to your success. Implementing an automated clinical and order decision supported workflow that medically justifies your orders is invaluable.
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Earning new revenue is the goal. Keeping it is the expectation, but it doesn't happen without the right data behind it. Vanguard is highly skilled at implementing clinical data automation.
Advantages of Physician Owned Labs
A physician office laboratory (POL) refers to a laboratory that is located within a physician's office and is used for diagnostic testing. Some advantages of a POL include:
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Convenience: Patients can have diagnostic tests done on-site during their office visit, which can save time and reduce the need for multiple trips to different locations.
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Faster test results: Tests performed in a POL can be completed faster than tests sent to an outside laboratory, which can lead to quicker diagnosis and treatment.
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Improved patient care: Having diagnostic test results available during an office visit can allow physicians to make immediate treatment decisions, which can improve patient outcomes.
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Better patient satisfaction: patients may prefer to have laboratory tests done at their physician's office and may find it more convenient.
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A new revenue opportunity: When your practice sends laboratory work to another laboratory, you’re also sending money out the door. Physicians have a safe harbor with the Medicare In Office Exemption. This means that you can perform ancillary services to your patients for revenue so long as it is within the scope of care of your practice, that you do not change your referral patterns, and that you price your services competitively.
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Meeting your Quality Payment Program (QPP) measures: When you make a referral out for laboratory services many practices experience that as many as 30% of the lab referrals are unfulfilled. This affects your QPP scores and can put your payer contracts at risk for lower negotiated rates, performance penalties, and missing care quality bonuses.
Not all the physician office laboratories have the same level of complexity and volume of test. Some of them may only perform basic and routine tests, while others might have more advanced equipment and perform more complex tests. Those decisions pathways can be made with an exploratory conversation about your business opportunities and the resources your business wants to invest into your laboratory solution.