by Betsy Sears on May 7, 2012
May 15 at 1 p.m. Central
Presented by: Betsy Sears, MSM, MT (ASCP)
You’ll Learn:
During this one hour webcast you will learn about factors that may affect laboratory tests, what happens when specimens get to the laboratory and how to best prepare your applicants for laboratory testing.
Betsy Sears, MSM, MT(ASCP)
ExamOne Executive Vice President, Sales Support & Client Solutions
Betsy has more than 25 years of experience in the insurance laboratory environment. Betsy works closely with ExamOne‘s laboratory operations, medical and sales staff on customer issues and supports insurance customers through a variety of presentations on laboratory, medical and risk assessment topics. Her duties also include managing some of the International Sales initiatives, Research and Development, and overseeing Insurance Client Solutions in the United States and Canada. Prior to joining ExamOne, Betsy served as VP and Laboratory Director of Osborn Laboratories for 14 years. She also has over 11 years of experience in clinical and hospital laboratory settings in New York City and Chicago, specializing in microbiology. Betsy received her B.S. degree in Medical Technology from the University of Missouri, Kansas City and her Master’s degree in Business Management from Baker University.
by admin on March 22, 2012
Laboratory testing is a vital piece of the underwriting process when issuing policies to life insurance applicants. The quality of the laboratory chosen by an insurer should be strongly considered when making that choice. There is risk involved in the decisions made by underwriters based on the laboratory results of an applicant. Inaccurate results could place applicants in the wrong risk pool, skewing their rating. Additionally, the relationship that the applicant has with the Insurer should also be considered. Inaccurate results could diminish the trust and confidence between the applicant and the insurer, potentially putting the policy at risk.
All Labs Are Not Created Equal
The leading laboratory accreditation quality organizations (CLIA and CAP) do NOT specify any accuracy targets for laboratory testing. Many laboratories promote a 95% to 99% accuracy target on their laboratory testing. While that sounds like an appropriate level of accuracy, we would like to detail the difference between other laboratories and ExamOne (a subsidiary of Quest Diagnostics), currently operating at a level beyond 99.99%, approaching 99.9997% Six Sigma targets.
The graph above depicts the number of errors each laboratory will generate based on their accuracy ratings. For a laboratory operating at 95% accuracy, one in 20 tests will contain an error. Statistically, that’s an error on every insurance laboratory report. And the worst part is – you won’t know where the error lies.
Six Sigma
Six Sigma quality with 99.9997 % accuracy targets cannot be obtained by just meeting minimum state and federal laboratory standards. Other laboratories may use these standards as the sole basis of their quality program, but at ExamOne you can be assured of the significant efforts we engage in to meet Six Sigma standards. In addition, our 800 scientific professionals who are located in our 28 Quest Diagnostics clinical laboratories are always here to assist you.
For more information, please register for our upcoming webcast April 4th at 1:00pm Central Time to learn from Dr. Jim Palmier how ExamOne puts quality first.