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More U.S. workers are testing positive for marijuana while the number testing positive for opioids continues to decline, according to the annual Quest Diagnostics Drug Testing Index.[CR-LF][CR-LF]Based on an analysis of nine million drug tests conducted in 2018, Quest determined that 5.1 percent of the general workforce tested positive for drugs and another 2.7 percent of workers in safety-sensitive positions regulated by federal law did so. Those in safety-sensitive jobs include pilots; rail, bus and truck drivers; and workers in nuclear power plants.

As hospitals turn to technology to overhaul the patient experience and improve profits, a range of vendors from are bring new products and outsourced services to meet that demand with artificial intelligence, data analytics and natural language processing as well as cognitive and process automation.The end-to-end solution may not work for every system, but all providers are looking to modernize. Some do it through Optum products such as computer assisted coding technologies with natural language processing baked in.[CR-LF][CR-LF]Using partner Quest Diagnostics, Optum360 can predict patient responsibility at the point of service.

As attorneys argued over a section of an Arizona law that differentiates between marijuana and cannabis, the state’s Supreme Court justices joked about baking pot brownies in their kitchens.[CR-LF][CR-LF]They clearly do not understand how the marijuana industry has irresponsibly manipulated pot into dangerously high levels of potency.[CR-LF]Marijuana use is on the rise among US workers, a study from Quest Diagnostics found, increasing by 16% since 2014.

Major testing lab Quest Diagnostics says a small proportion of workforce tests nationally come back positive for marijuana or any other drugs, but the number has been growing in recent years.[CR-LF][CR-LF]Including job applicants and hired workers, the positive-test rate for marijuana was 2.8% last year, up from 2.4% in 2014, the Secaucus, New Jersey-based company said Thursday.

UnitedHealthcare this week named seven labs to its new Preferred Laboratory Network. They are AmeriPath/DermPath, a division of Quest Diagnostics; BioReference and its GeneDx lab; Invitae; Laboratory Corporation of America; Mayo Clinic Laboratories; and Quest. PLN's goal is threefold: to make healthcare affordable, improve outcomes, and improve the patient experience, UHC said in a statement. PLN launches on July 1, 2019. While UHC customers can choose a lab not in PLN, the price of services accessed through the network will be lower, UHC said, noting that pathology services for a biopsy in PLN would be $90 compared to $150 outside of PLN.