Media Coverage

Welcome to the "Lessons from the C-suite" series, featuring Advisory Board President Eric Larsen's conversations with the most influential leaders in health care.[CR-LF][CR-LF]In this edition, Steve Rusckowski, chair, president, and CEO of Quest Diagnostics, talks about how diagnostic information services can inflect the country's $3.6 trillion in health care costs, the unexpected upside of the Theranos misadventure, and how Quest is thinking about the drawbacks—and benefits—of the landscape-changing regulatory shift known as PAMA.

Over the past year, I’ve spent time outside of the office helping two uncles, both of whom are struggling with medical conditions exacerbated by their advanced ages. This has been neither a burden nor an obligation; I consider it a privilege to be able to help provide loving care for the two of them.[CR-LF][CR-LF]According to a recent survey by Quest Diagnostics, 2 in 5 older Americans with chronic conditions reported that they do not tell their doctor about loneliness, isolation, transportation barriers and other factors that influence health, with many admitting they "struggle to stay on top of my health issues and need more support."

Further, physicians may not be as prepared as they think when it comes to spotting signs of misuse: 83% of physicians believe they're able to adequately screen for prescription drug misuse, yet more than half of all patient test results processed by Quest Diagnostics for prescription drug monitoring showed signs of misuse.

A New Jersey federal judge on Friday gave her initial approval to a $195,000 deal in a proposed class action against Quest Diagnostics Inc. over a November 2016 data breach that exposed the personal information of about 34,000 customers.

There’s at least some data to back that up, according to (the aptly-named) Dr. Barry Sample, a senior director at Quest Diagnostics, a company that conducts more than 10 million workforce drug tests annually.[CR-LF][CR-LF]Sample leads the team that analyzes those tests. He said from 2015 to 2018, the number of drug tests performed that included marijuana dropped across the country, but most prominently in states where recreational weed is legal.

Quest Diagnostics and the bioinformatics company Hc1 have unveiled Quest Lab Stewardship, a service that uses machine learning to harmonize laboratory testing across health care systems in an effort to improve lab test utilization.[CR-LF][CR-LF]Quest Lab Stewardship “integrates in real-time with enterprise systems and leverages Hc1’s machine-learning capabilities to ingest, organize, and normalize lab data, alleviating the time and effort of manual data gathering and analysis,” according to a press announcement from Quest. “It also provides a framework for lab directors and hospital administrators to consult with medical staff to identify areas of concern and implement compendium updates and order prompting based on selected clinical guidelines.”

If you've been prescribed pain pills and think doctors are avoiding you as a new patient, you just might be right. [CR-LF][CR-LF]A large percentage of primary-care doctors (81%) say they're hesitant to accept new patients who've been prescribed pain meds, a newly released survey shows. Even more (83%) say the opioid crisis makes it harder to treat pain patients.[CR-LF]The new report, Drug Misuse in America 2019: Physicians Perspectives and Diagnostics Insights on the Evolving Drug Crisis, shows findings indicating that the opioid crisis continues to have a major impact on physicians and people in pain.

If you've been prescribed pain pills and think doctors are avoiding you as a new patient, you just might be right. [CR-LF][CR-LF]A large percentage of primary-care doctors (81%) say they're hesitant to accept new patients who've been prescribed pain meds, a newly released survey shows. Even more (83%) say the opioid crisis makes it harder to treat pain patients.[CR-LF]The new report, Drug Misuse in America 2019: Physicians Perspectives and Diagnostics Insights on the Evolving Drug Crisis, shows findings indicating that the opioid crisis continues to have a major impact on physicians and people in pain.

While reporting financial results for the third quarter on Tuesday, Quest Diagnostics Inc. (DGX) raised its earnings and adjusted earnings guidance for the full-year 2019. For fiscal 2019, the company now projects earnings in a range of $5.48 to $5.53 per share and adjusted earnings in a range of $6.45 to $6.50 per share on net revenues of about $7.72 billion.

Almost three-quarters of primary care physicians believe that their patients will take their controlled medications as prescribed, but more than half of drug-monitoring lab tests show signs of misuse, according to a new report from Quest Diagnostics.