Laboratory Industry Report

By the end of this year, the average referral expense per reportable result of sending a test to an outside reference laboratory is expected to fall to $32.84, down 11 percent from 2007’s figure of $36.98, according to analysis of hospital labs by the laboratory consulting firm Chi Solutions Inc. (Ann Arbor, Mich.). The median is expected to drop 12 percent from $33.30 in 2007 to $29.26 in 2008 (see Figure 1). Hospital labs currently dominate the $50 billion clinical lab market with 54 percent market share.