Many may have already heard about LabCorp’s bold move in denying services to a heart attack patient over an old debt of $7, but I just want to make sure that everyone hears about this incident. Below is the article by Donna Smith, the patient’s wife. She rightfully denounced Laboratory Corporation of America’s practice of disallowing services when “their” computer shows that an old debt was not paid, even if you have insurance and your insurance company may have made an error or did not pay the amount that Laboratory Corporation of America believed was due. Bottom line is that even with insurance, LabCorp will deny services to patients who they believe owe them money from prior services. Here is the note from LabCorp’s front desk that was given to Mr. Smith when he was denied services. You can click on it to get a bigger image.

OK, if this wasn’t personal enough just yet for me, it just got a whole lot more so. And if you think for one instant that in this nation at this point in history and with this popularly elected President and Democratic Congress you will be treated for a heart attack simply because you might die if you are not treated, think again. And if you think having insurance helps, think some more.

On Friday, my husband was denied a blood test because a computer record from some distant time past and some other state showed he had a $7 balance with LabCorp. I am not making this up.

My husband had a heart attack this week. He woke up one morning sweating profusely and with a heart rate dropping. I watched his color turn first ruddy then ashen, and then he felt as though he was going to pass out. He would not allow me to call 911 as he slowly began to feel sick to his stomach and he believed his symptoms were digestive rather than cardiac.

We have learned over the years to wait to seek care – it is expensive to do otherwise and dooms us to the endless loop of bills and collection notices and more damage to our already badly bruised credit rating. So we always wait to seek care until there seems to be no other option. We are not alone. Millions of Americans do the same. We do not want to use the emergency rooms or doctors’ offices. We don’t want anything to do with the whole mess.

We moved to Maryland in March, but have fought Humana insurance and Medicare transfer since then to even make sure my husband can get any care at all. And, by God, we were paying the premiums the whole time the insurance folks hemmed and hawed and stalled. It took three months to get that all straightened out, during which time they repeated over and over, “we’re not denying treatment,” and technically I suppose they weren’t as they want us all just to get out our checkbooks and debit cards and pay up. And in the meantime, my husband waited for any doctors’ appointment and got meds by calling back to Chicago to get prescriptions refilled.

My husband is a cardiac patient and a vascular patient with a complicated medical history and needs follow-up care on a regular basis. He is a responsible guy who has always maintained his insurance coverage and who avoids seeking care unless it is needed. He does not seek to overuse or abuse the system. To stay relatively healthy, he needs regular check-ups and decent intervention when necessary.

But, I insisted my husband follow up in the way we all are told is more sensible and cost effective. He went to a primary care doc on Wednesday who shuffled him off to a cardiologist after a visit barely long enough to be billed as an “extended, new patient visit.” An EKG showed the grim reality. “Abnormal, negative T-waves. Inferior infarct.”

Blood work was ordered in advance of the cardiologist visit set for Friday. He was to fast overnight, see the cardiologist and then get his blood drawn. Seems to be progressing, eh?

Well, only until he sat down in the LabCorp office to get his blood drawn. The LabCorp employee typed in my husband’s Social Security Number, and promptly told him he could not have his blood drawn or have his test administered until he cleared up his old bill with LabCorp. The bill? $7. That’s right — $7.

And my husband has been covered by insurance for many years. But now he sat – post myocardial infarction or heart attack – being told by a laboratory employee that he would be denied care due to an unpaid $7 bill. He did not have $7 with him. He was fasting. He tried to explain. They did not budge. They did call the supervisor. She confirmed and stood her ground for LabCorp. No test for Larry Smith. He owes $7.

David King, the CEO of LabCorp, made $8.2 million in 2008. He’s one of the people and LabCorp is one of the companies President Obama is celebrating who will help transform our nation’s healthcare system. Indeed. And LabCorp’s political participation committee donated funds to several candidates in 2008, including Sen. Max Baucus and Sen. Charles Grassley, both of the Senate Finance Committee that is working on the nation’s healthcare reform.

Lest we think the insurance giants are the only people hurting, harming and killing Americans like my husband as they shore up their profits, follow the money in this story alone. One doctor’s office, another doctor’s office, one insurance company and finally a lab – all worked together to make what they could individually off my husband and then ultimately denied his care for $7. Everybody got their bite of the apple and then left him in the dust as they moved on to the next source of revenue, oops, I mean the next patient.

Where do we stand today? Still no blood work drawn. Waiting for next week to see what we can do to set the tests and exams the cardiologist ordered before she got busy with another patient. Did my husband return to the doctor’s office to tell them what happened and ask for their help? Yes. And he said not one person, not one, would reach into their pockets and give him the $7 or pick up the phone and try to help him resolve this. So what was his life worth? $7.

We’ll get the tests done somehow. But the point is, we’ll have to fight for it. And his heart will be stressed more and so on and so on and so on. This is the travesty of healthcare in this nation. And this Congress and this President are so damned concerned with their own political futures they cannot even see this reality for the rest of us. I am so angry.

And don’t tell me that a single payer – publicly funded and privately delivered system — wouldn’t stop heart attack patients from being denied care due to old debts of $7. It’s the only system that could stop that sort of abuse.

The LabCorp supervisor who denied Larry Smith’s test on Friday, June 26, in Elkridge, Maryland, is named Shirley Smith (no relation to Larry) at LabCorp’s Maryland office: 410-365-1264.

Donna Smith is a substantial supporter of the Democrat Party so in all fairness, LabCorp attorneys and management were also contributors to Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton and many Democrat Senators and Members of the House of Representatives who are working on health care reform legislation. LabCorp is now trying to convince these same elected officials into making laws that benefit the company. According to Huffington Post, 7 identifiable LabCorp employees contributed to Republicans while 14 contributed to Democrats.

About a year ago this web site was launched as a result of incidents in LabCorp’s Miami, Florida facilities. Before it was launched I had a conversation with Laboratory Corporation of America’s Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President Don Hardison. He seemed genuine and acknowledged that Laboratory Corporation of America had many operational problems. He stated that he was fairly new to the company but intended to fix all of them. I believed him.

After a year it looks like Don Hardison has not fixed LabCorp’s problems. I recently contacted the Miami division’s office and was informed that the regional director is still Bob Blanco, and that the Patient Service Center director is still Ana Garcia. I would have thought that after all the damage that these two have caused Laboratory Corporation of America, they would have been terminated. How can you fix a problem when the people creating the problems are at the helm? These two managers outright lied to me, and used the old “lie about them before they tell the truth about you” technique to get away with their incompetence.

The fact that Don Hardison did not fire these two incompetent employees after my complaints makes me believe that he is not as genuine as he first made me believe. He talks the talk but he has not walked the walk. So I now ask, would the real Don Hardison please stand up? The Miami region’s customer service is probably worse than it was a year ago (according to comments on this site). This web site seems to get substantially more complaints about the company and its service centers than before. So what has Don Hardison fixed? All I see is the mask coming off and the real Don Hardison coming out. Just another Laboratory Corporation of America manager covering for the incompetence of those below him. It’s the “If they look good then you look like you are doing your job” philosophy. Forget reality.

In reference to the LabCorp Sucks web site, I intended to pull the plug once these two employees were fired for their actions. Their dismissal by Hardison would have shown that he, and  LabCorp, really mean what they say and that they intend to clean up the company and focus on customer service. That has not happened so this site is still up. Not to sound negative, I think that LabCorp Sucks will be around for a while.

Making a lab error on a blood test can have a serious impact on a life. I don’t know if LabCorp employees don’t care, or if they are simply numb to the impact of their lab errors because they rapidly run through so many blood tests. This is part of their “quantity is more important than quality” problem.

I received this email from Natasha today. I don’t know what I would do if this LabCorp lab error occurred during a blood test on my child. It is devastating news that no one should have to endure as a result of a lab error.

Angelman Syndrome - Click for Large Image

LabCorp diagnosed my son with a rare genetic disorder called Angelman Syndrome by a Methylation blood work test. This syndrome is characterized with mental retardation, lack of speech, and seizures just to name a few symptoms. Our family was devastated, and we grieved for months.

When he got in to see a neurologist, he ordered another test to get more information about which type of the syndrome he may have. This test came back negative. We were shocked, but tried not to get our hopes up too high because we did not know which test was accurate. When we finally got in to see the geneticist, he ordered another round of genetic testing, this time a more detailed test called a cgh, as well as the original test. All negative.

LabCorp told the genetic counselor that they think they switched his blood. For privacy reasons they wont tell us anything, but assured her that they would try and find the child who really has this condition. As relieved as we were to have the good news, we are so angry for this mix up happening in the first place. Months and months of our lives were taken from us, and I still have not received one phone call from Lab Corp. We are unsure how to proceed from here. Anyway, this is an EXTREMELY abbreviated version of the story. Please let me know if you would like more information, I will do anything to help, no family should go through what we experienced.

My recommendation to Natasha is that she find a lawyer and sue LabCorp for punitive damages. A blood test lab error of this magnitude should be sufficient grounds for a lawsuit. One that I am sure LabCorp would settle quickly before the news quickly spreads and their testing service loses even more credibility.

The days between getting LabCorp’s lab results and finding out about LabCorp’s error were probably Natasha’s worst days of her life. No health services provider has the right to do  this to anyone. It’s obvious that Laboratory Corporation of America understands money, so they should pay for their mistake. In addition, government regulators should step in so that this never happens again.

I thought that United Health Care wore a white hat, but I guess I was wrong and that they only canceled the contract with LabCorp in the South Florida region. Unfortunately it does not look like they canceled their contracts in other parts of the USA. United Health Care will learn, but only after they continue to lose patients and HMO members. Here’s an email I received from another “former” Labcorp patient.

Hi,

I see that you have United Healhcare on your “good guys” list.   I’m not sure if you are aware, but as far as Verizon Business for United Healthcare (40,000+ employees) is concerned, Lab Corp is the only lab we are allowed to go to that is covered.  I am not sure if other companies that use United are allowed to use other labs, but we got a letter in March of ’08 that they were dropping Quest in favor of LabCorp.

Here is a letter I sent to HR this morning:

I would like to go on record to state my displeasure with Verizon/United Healthcare using LabCorp as the new lab of choice for blood work.   LabCorp is a cheap, cut rate operation staffed by nothing but a mean, discourteous and unprofessional staff.   I have had to use LabCorp three times this year and each time has been an unpleasant experience.  LabCorp establishments are understaffed and both of the doctors that send me there complain that the results take over a week to get, as opposed to 24 hours with Quest Diagnostics.  They state that they often need to call LabCorp to request the results, while patients who use Quest will have a fax with the results delivered the next business day.

Any money that Verizon Business/United Healthcare is saving by switching from Quest to LabCorp is certainly not worth the anguish that it is putting employees and customers through by forcing them to go there instead of Quest.

Thanks for your site.  I Googled “labcorp sucks” and was pleased to find your site!

NAME WITHHELD

Here’s something really interesting. A few weeks ago LabCorp employees started posting comments on this site in support and defense of the company and employees. Shortly thereafter, www.labcorpsucks.com almost dissappeared from the Google search results. There does not appear to be a reasonable explanation for this to happen, as this site has lots of visits from dissatisfied LabCorp patients and is still highly ranked in Yahoo and MSN. I just saw an article in the Medical Quack Blog that may provide some answers (or at least raise some suspicion). It is about the business relationship between Google and LabCorp. I would not put it past LabCorp executives to ask Google to punish this website, but it is hard for me to believe that Google would actually play along with LabCorp and lower the search value of a website based on their own economic interests.

Last month several Genomics companies received warning letters from the State of California and were told they needed to be licensed.  23andMe, which is an offshoot of Google may have a potential solution on the dilemma of the licensing issue with working with LabCorp,  one of the largest labs in the US. 

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Although 23andMe is keeping mum on which contract laboratory it is using to conduct its DTC genomic testing services, GenomeWeb Daily News has learned that Laboratory Corporation of America is providing the necessary genotyping services for the personal genomics company. “I can confirm that we are doing lab work for 23andMe,” Eric Lindblom, LabCorp’s senior vice president for investor and media relations, told GWDN.

…You can also read more about the National Genetics Institute, a subsidiary of LabCorp. LabCorp already has a pretty large stake invested in the genomics business.

Lindblom also noted that LabCorp is CLIA licensed in California and New York, the two states that recently warned 23andMe, along with several other personal genomics firms, to stop marketing genetic tests directly to consumers. One of the reasons cited by regulators was that the consumer genomics firms were not licensed in these states to provide laboratory services.

I had a talk with one of the managers at a service center about the jobs that people perform at the company. Here are some interesting things that she had to say.

1) Job turnover in the Miami region is very high. The revolving door is a result of the way that they operate the company. Labcorp jobs are always availabe because so many leave the company.

2) Managers are not too familiar with who their boss is. They know the name but have never really met them or interacted with them.

3) About Bob Blanco – “Oh, he’s the guy who signs my checks. He’s the big boss. I never met him but he gives the orders to pay me.”

Q: have you ever met him?      A: No but I know him by name.

How can a service center manager not have met the district manager? I guess when you are a district manager that sits around the office, you never really know what is going on outside your little cave. Maybe they need lessons on how to be a successful executive. That “isolation from reality” seems to be a common problem in most districts.

That’s something that I admire about Bank of America. Part of the job requirement to be a banking center manager is that you have to walk around the floor during busy hours and interact with the customers and employees. Now that’s customer service. If you have a question or problem, ask the boss. Forget that executive attitude. The manager is just another person trying to provide a favorable banking experience.

Just received a statement from LabCorp for the blood tests performed on July 1st. My insurance company paid them but they claim that there is still a deductible that I have to pay. The bill came with a return envelope that required a stamp, and a notice that if I wanted to pay online I can go to labcorp.com billing. I fully reviewed the billing statement to see what they billed for. All the tests that they performed and reported results were billed for, and the one that they claimed that “there was not enough blood for” was not billed. My insurance company paid them a fraction of what they billed, which I guess was the contract rate. The only thing that is puzzling is that the amount that LabCorp claims that I am responsible for is about 30% of what my insurance company paid them. If you take the amount that they actually billed, then the patient responsibility amount is fair, as it is only about 3% of the total amount of the billing. 30% seems kind of high so I will look into the matter further.

LabCorp’s stock hit a new 52-week low today after posting less than expected sales and profits. Even LabCorp supporting analysts downgraded the stock. Here’s one headline from MarketWatch “S&P DOWNGRADES OPINION ON SHARES OF LABCORP OF AMERICA…” Here’s another one “Laboratory Corp. Of America Holdings’ second-quarter net income fell 19% on restructuring costs as the lab-services provider lowered its 2008 outlook.”

At one point during the day LH stock was down almost $7, losing over 10% of the company’s market value. Laboratory Corporation of America’s stock trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol LH.

I’ve received dozens of emails related to problems and complaints against LabCorp. From those who have filed lawsuits against them to physicians that are fed up with service related issues. I will respond to them all this week. Since this is something that I do on the side because of the poor attitude of LabCorp company manager and executives, I can only do it during down time. Sorry about that.

The retail business has many dynamics. It’s a business that I know well. Relating these principles to LabCorp’s operation, it is hard to believe that there are so many patients that will never set foot in a LabCorp center again. Yet the company and its executives do not seem to be doing anything about it. It’s a real shame how a company can believe that they are so omnipotent that they can do whatever they want. Our country’s laws and regulations are established for these particular instances. They will eventually catch up to LabCorp. The government agencies will move in and that’s when you will see them change.

I also believe that the tough economy will severely affect LabCorp and their view of the customer. In my opinion, they see the customer as the HMO, insurance company or 3rd party payer. The patient is seen as a secondary factor when in fact it is all about the patient. Poor results or worst yet, no results, will not only anger the patients but also the payer as the patient will start complaining. Why do these managers and executives not see this? Oh well, they will when the 3rd party payers start cancelling contracts because of malpractice lawsuits. And the doctors that send them the specimens for results? They will eventually get tired of poor results that affect the lives of their patients. I believe that doctors generally care more about their patients than the lower prices offered by LabCorp. That will also work against LabCorp. When will this company wake up to reality?

This section is for everything else about LabCorp that is not covered in the other categories. Tell your story.