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Enhanced XiFin Lab Volume Index (LVI) Provides Greater Visibility Into Testing Volume Trends Across Key Diagnostic Market Segments
October 23, 2023
Today’s diagnostic testing landscape continues to shift into a post-pandemic reality shaped by patient, provider, and payor behaviors and continued digital transformation across the healthcare ecosystem. Recent trends reveal that while COVID testing has declined, overall molecular testing has steadily grown and continues to grow post-COVID. Additionally, 13 new Category III CPT® codes have been introduced for Digital Pathology in 2023. Central to understanding these shifts and identifying trends is the interactive XiFin® Lab Volume Index (LVI). Updated monthly, XiFin LVI provides insight into testing volumes across various diagnostic categories.
As we move through evolving digital landscapes, having the right tools to measure and understand change is crucial. XiFin LVI goes beyond statistical analysis by examining how the diagnostic industry responds to the digital revolution, a reality shaped by the data. With routine monitoring of laboratory testing volumes and industry performance, XiFin LVI provides a granular view of how digital technologies are reshaping the diagnostics landscape, one test at a time.
Understanding the Power of XiFin’s Lab Volume Index
The enhanced XiFin Lab Volume Index enables the user to select what year (2019-2022) to use as a baseline against which activity is measured. Previously, the baseline was set to 2019, before the start of COVID-19. Throughout COVID, using that same baseline was a good measure of fluctuations in volume as compared to pre-COVID average volume.
Measuring Testing Volumes Across Key Diagnostic Market Segments: XiFin LVI measures laboratory testing volumes against a baseline average, offering a glimpse into COVID-19 versus routine testing volumes over time across key categories: clinical, immunology and microbiology, molecular and genetic, and anatomic pathology.
Insights into Molecular Testing Growth: A XiFin analysis reveals that the post-pandemic shift towards molecular testing, is due in part to higher volumes in the women’s health and prenatal testing sectors, highlighting one way by which labs are leveraging the excess capacity created during the pandemic.
Expanded Visibility: The enhanced XiFin LVI features a user-selectable baseline for 2019-2022, enabling more flexibility in comparing testing volume changes over time.
Shifting COVID Capacity
As COVID testing declined, overall molecular testing steadily grew and continues to grow post-COVID. This is an indication that labs are taking the excess capacity that grew to support COVID testing and utilizing it for other types of molecular and genetic testing, led by women’s health, predominantly prenatal testing.
“Molecular testing has grown fairly steadily since 2019, thanks in part to increases in women’s health testing, led by prenatal,” said Jeff Carmichael, senior vice president of engineering at XiFin. “The rapid increase in capacity and upgrades in technology infrastructure investments made by labs to manage workflow and productivity during the pandemic has paid off.”
The Evolving Digital Pathology Coding Landscape
Digital pathology is rapidly evolving, mirroring the broader shift towards digital diagnostics in healthcare. In 2023, 13 new Category III Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes were introduced to account for the additional work in digitizing microscope slides for digital examination and pathologist review. This expansion continues in 2024 with 30 new add-on CPT codes, indicating a growing recognition and structuring of digital pathology services within the healthcare coding and reimbursement framework.
XiFin LVI data reveals that labs employing digital slides for examination and final diagnosis do so in about 5% of relevant cases, reflecting a gradual yet significant adoption of digital pathology.
As the coding landscape adapts to the digital wave, understanding the costs, value, and impending reimbursement frameworks becomes crucial for pathology laboratories. This evolving coding framework, coupled with insights from XiFin LVI, underscores the journey toward unlocking the full potential of digital pathology in a new era of diagnostic precision and efficiency.
Unlocking Reimbursement with XiFin LVI
The financial landscape of digital pathology will further evolve with the development of Category I codes and the assignment of reimbursement rates. Reimbursement frameworks are a critical component of the financial sustainability of digital pathology practices. The advent of Category I codes is a sign of maturation in the digital pathology domain, indicating a move towards standardized reimbursement structures.
Having robust data to establish the market value of digital pathology services will be a cornerstone in achieving appropriate reimbursement. This is where tools like XiFin’s Lab Volume Index could play a pivotal role by providing insightful data on testing volumes, market trends, and the adoption rate of digital pathology. This data can be a valuable resource for pathology laboratories to benchmark their services, understand market value, and advocate for fair reimbursement rates.
The financial foresight in digital pathology is not merely about cost assessment but about understanding the broader value proposition, being prepared for evolving reimbursement frameworks, and leveraging data to substantiate the market value of digital pathology services. As laboratories navigate the financial intricacies of digitization, a well-informed, data-driven approach will be instrumental in ensuring the adoption and sustainable integration of digital pathology into the diagnostic ecosystem.
Explore the evolving diagnostic testing landscape with the XiFin Lab Volume Index (LVI), offering critical insights on testing volumes and diagnostic trends.
Your data-driven journey into digital diagnostics begins here.