Media Coverage

According to Mayo Medical Laboratories' Jane Hermansen, "the best kept secret" at many of the hospitals she has observed over the course of her career is "the net revenue of their lab outreach programs." Quest in recent years has snapped up the outreach businesses of systems including Pacific Northwest-based PeaceHealth, Connecticut's Backus Hospital and the Hospital of Central Connecticut, and Flint, Michigan's Hurley Medical Center. LabCorp, meanwhile, has purchased businesses including Mount Sinai Clinical Outreach Laboratories, Spokane, Washington-based Pathology Associates Medical Laboratories, and Detroit Medical Center's outreach operation.

You see it in every major town and city. With 6,600 patient access points, Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (DGX) is one of the leading providers of patient diagnostics, laboratory testing, and genetic testing services in the United States. When you consider the importance of diagnostics in the medical field as well as testing services for a US labor force that faces pressure from drugs, Quest Diagnostics seems like a potentially lucrative investment opportunity.

Heightened awareness of the dangers of prescription opioids has prompted a movement to limit use of opioid therapies for patients with acute or chronic pain. Primary care practitioners stand on the front lines of this care shift, and many are curtailing prescribing opioids in response. But is the solution to the drug epidemic this straightforward? These latest data align with findings of an analysis of drug monitoring laboratory tests performed by Quest Diagnostics and published in the Journal of Addiction Medicine.

Quest Diagnostics Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer Steve Rusckowski led a group of dignitaries at a groundbreaking ceremony for a new flagship laboratory at the On3 campus earlier this month. With more than 1,100 employees expected to work at the new 250,000-square-foot facility when it opens in 2021, the lab, on the Clifton side of the ON3 campus redevelopment project, will be the company's largest.

The giant inflatable colon stolen from a Kansas City nonprofit last year will soon have a name. Quest Diagnostics and the Colon Cancer Coalition are hosting a naming ceremony Friday, March 1 at noon. Police said last year, thanks to a tip, officers found it in a vacant house near Virginia Avenue and Gregory Boulevard.

Roughly a year after its launch, a pilot project exploring the use of blockchain to manage healthcare provider records is paying off. The effort, which has thus far focused on some 100,000 provider locations across Texas, has produced substantial efficiencies for participating firms, said Jason O'Meara, senior director of architecture at Quest Diagnostics, one of the seven companies comprising the Synaptic Health Alliance, the healthcare industry group leading the project.

Quest Diagnostics said this week that its board has declared a quarterly cash dividend of $.53 per share, payable on April 22 to shareholders of record on April 8. Laboratory Corporation of America recorded net restructuring charges of $48.1 million related to severance and other personnel costs, and integration activities in 2018, it reported in its Form 10K to the US Securities and Exchange Commission this week.

Quest Diagnostics combined its chief information and digital officers into one role and named Gabrielle Wolfson, former Xerox Corp. CIO, to the role in February, according to The Wall Street Journal. Ms. Wolfson comes to Quest with experience managing the technology infrastructure and digital business at Xerox, according to the report. Former Quest Diagnostics CIO Lidia Fonseca left the role last year to take a position as chief digital officer at Pfizer.

Gov. Phil Murphy will reveal a state budget Tuesday that reduces spending on health care for New Jersey’s government workers by $800 million, alleviating at least some pressure on the state to hike major taxes this year, NJ Advance Media has learned. Murphy expects to save $61 million by auditing the insurance rolls and rooting out ineligible dependents, $7.9 million by auditing claims processed by the current pharmacy benefits manager, and $12.5 million by shifting Quest Diagnostics, the popular diagnostic lab, in network, among other changes, including rebidding the state’s contract for a pharmacy benefits manager.