Jeff,

Patients were not charged for recuts on the premise that the slides are
their's.  Their insurance paid for them.  What we used to do for recuts is
pull all the slides from the case and have the pathologist review them for
which block/s to cut.

I don't recall what we did about reports.  I think we did not charge the
patient for pathology reports.


Legal cases where a different story, especially the ones involving autopsy
cases.  There are a lot of class action suits involving implants and
asbestos where lawyers were making alot of money. Risk management handled
some of these instances.  In most cases the attorney's were charged if
recuts were done.  If the attorney's did not want to pay, they were invited
to either use our pathologists ( if it wasn't a conflict of interest ) or
they could bring their own in to review the slides.  Legal cases can hang
slides up for years. They usually paid.  I can't remember the amount we
decided on, it's been a while.

I hope this  helps.

Rande Kline HT (ASCP)
Technical Services
EM Science






Jeff Silverman <peptolab@hamptons.com> on 11/21/98 08:18:20 AM

To:   histonet@pathology.swmed.edu
cc:    (bcc: Rande Kline/EMI/Merck)
Subject:  Billing for recuts,vs send outs.




Clinical Netters-
What are your labs doing, charge wise,  when the patient picks up slides
for referral to a treating institution- either recuts or sending originals?
 Is there a charge to the patient for picking up either recuts or original?
 Do you charge for copies of reports only, clerical retrieval, review by
docs, or only if you have to reproduce the slides by recuts, or never? Hope
this isn't too confusing, but I'd like to know.

Jeff Silverman
peptolab@hamptons.com