Test utilization improves when physicians use a laboratory decision system
Medical Database, Inc., a provider of updated medical information to providers, insurance companies and educational institutions, has announced the publication of a clinical study which provides evidence for the effectiveness of LDS, a laboratory decision system which guides clinicians in selecting and ordering laboratory tests.
The study results, published in The Journal of Clinical and Laboratory Medicine, show a significant reduction in the number of unnecessary tests ordered by clinicians, thereby reducing 'wasteful' healthcare spending while improving patient outcomes.
Laboratory diagnostics has become the largest single clinical activity in the U.S., with 4 to 5 billion tests performed each year. Yet, as one CDC study showed, nearly 15 percent of primary care physicians experienced uncertainty in ordering the proper test, with more than 75 percent of the providers saying they would welcome a reference resource to help reduce uncertainty.
Medical Database, Inc.’s LDS laboratory test ordering and utilization management software is an intuitive platform that employs evidence-based guidelines and industry best practices to assist healthcare providers in selecting and ordering the most appropriate laboratory tests.
With LDS, clinicians are able to select the most appropriate test using test procedure, CPT code, disease, or a diagnostic (ICD10) code. All orders placed using the LDS platform automatically include the appropriate ICD10 code to meet medical necessity for reimbursement. This innovative LDS feature allows labs and hospitals to streamline claims submission/verification.
LDS utilizes a proprietary (patent pending) ranking system to 'rate' potential tests for any given disease and assigns an easily interpretable numerical and color-coded score, based on clinical relevance, medical necessity and testing indication.
In the recently published study, LDS was used to analyze claims/orders from a reference laboratory and a small insurance provider managing self-pay organizations. In both cases, the LDS proprietary ranking system easily identified tests/orders that did not meet medical necessity or Medicare LCD and NCD policies (50 percent and 20 percent, respectively). Further, LDS would have made recommendations for the correct ICD10 codes for every test order received with an incorrect code. And finally, significant improvement would have resulted had LDS been employed as a testing selection and ordering system by automatically assigning the correct IC10 or diagnostic code to each order. It was concluded that LDS could improve laboratory test orders by more than 99 percent.
