title: The Rochester Consortium.
abstract: The laboratories of the six hospitals in Rochester, New York worked together to bid on laboratory services for local managed-care contracts. Their primary goal was to keep shrinking health-care dollars in the Rochester community while providing quality laboratory services for managed-care payers. The six laboratory providers formed a cooperative Consortium that enabled them to compete successfully with national commercial laboratories for referral laboratory testing for outpatients and nonpatients. In 1995, the Consortium was approached by a Rochester-based health maintenance organization (HMO) offering an exclusive contract opportunity based on requirements that included cost reduction and a switch from a fee schedule to a capitated payment method. The Rochester laboratories each agreed to contract terms with the HMO, then followed this success by working with a second, significantly larger HMO, agreeing to provide exclusive laboratory services under a similar, capitated arrangement. The formation and work of the Consortium may provide other hospitals facing daunting competition from large commercial laboratory enterprises with a cooperative arrangement model to provide community-wide laboratory services.
authors.affiliation: Strong Memorial Hospital, Rochester, NY, USA.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Marchwinski
authors.forename: S S
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Sullivan
authors.forename: J B
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Castillo
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Johnson
mesh_terms: D002204:Capitation Fee; D019411:Clinical Laboratory Techniques / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D003284:Contract Services; D019033:Delivery of Health Care, Integrated / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006279:Health Maintenance Organizations; D007755:Laboratories, Hospital / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D009518:New York; D011243:Preferred Provider Organizations / Q000191:economics*; D014600:Utilization Review