Wow,

A legitimate question asked in an appropriate list-server leading to
accusations of price gouging.  I should have left the actual question out of
my original post and just took a poll on how everyone feels about the out of
control cost of health-care because that seems to be the more interesting
topic.  

Moral/Ethical issues aside, I truly wanted to hear of any experience
histo-land had with this issue because I actually did hear it at a
conference (the presenter's name will be withheld to protect him from
accusations of holding patients down and rifling through their pockets) and
it actually did come up in my lab.

Now I remember why I switched over to just reading the histonet and not
daring to post anything in such a politically correct environment.  I'll
contact the workshop presenter to get the low-down on this question.  

Believe it or not, my intentions were not to price gouge patients that are
already being raked over the coals by the health-care system in this
country.  IMHO; we should look at other issues such as the need to hire
whole fleets of personelle just to wade through the hundreds of insurance
companies and their accompanying issues.  The histo lab is, as a rule,
putting out a very reasonably priced service with profit margins on tests
being kept low to out compete the rival lab that may try to take your
business.  If enough expensive antibodies are added to a cocktail, it can
become less than profitable.  I realize that the 88342 charge carries some
exhorbitant professional fees along with it but perhaps a lab out there has
been able to somehow raise just the technical fee a bit on cocktails???  

Any insights on this topic would be much appreciated.  More "how dare you's"
would not.

Thank-you,

Glen Dawson

-----Original Message-----
From: peptolab [mailto:peptolab@hamptons.com]
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2004 5:18 PM
To: GDawson@Milw.Dynacare.com
Cc: HistoNet Server
Subject: Price gouging on cocktails??


Glen- If your cocktail is positive, can you say which of the three melanoma
markers (I presume HMB 45, Mart-1, and tyrosinase) are responsible for the
positivity?  If no, then maybe only one charge is appropriate as this is a
screening test and you are only screening one slide. Does the antibody
cocktail cost three times the cost of any single component marker? Are you
running controls for all three markers separately or just a control for the
cocktail. Maybe one component isn't staining well- hw would you know? I vote
for one charge.

Jeff Silverman HT HTL QIHC (ASCP)

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