Boycott LabCorp

27. August 2007 William Davis (13)
Track Your Plaque Members have been following this conversation on the Track Your Plaque Forum.

A good number of people have had their blood drawn for NMR lipoprotein analysis through laboratories operated by the Laboratory Corporation of American, or LabCorp. When the results were returned, the very important page 2 of the report was withheld. Many of us have communicated with the company, only to be given some corporate-speak about internal policy.

I have personally expressed my dissatisfaction, my outrage, at this silly policy. Why would laboratory results that you or your insurance paid for be denied to you? It is my understanding that, on request, you are legally entitled to the information. The page 2 information is provided by the laboratory (Liposcience, Inc.) that actually performs the testing. LabCorp does nothing more than draw the blood, prepare the specimen, then convey and dilute the results that Liposcience reports to them.

My personal suspicion is that the LabCorp people do this to 1) make the results appear that they actually performed the tests and not farmed to an outside laboratory (Liposcience), and 2) not further confuse and befuddle the bungling primary care physician who barely understands cholesterol issues to begin with. "LDL, HDL, triglycerides . . . What now--a bunch of new information, bars even!?

To me, this LabCorp policy is criminal. In fact, I wonder if this has the substance to justify a class action lawsuit against LabCorp. I believe that we can easily make a case that crucial health information is being systematically denied to people.

If this has affected you, or if you share in the frustration of many people who have had watered down lipoprotein results provided, write to:


Ken Younts, VP of Sales at LabCorp. Yountsk@labcorp.com


Or, write to:

Tom MacMahon
Chairman of the Board

David P. King
President and Chief Executive Officer

Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings
358 South Main Street
Burlington, NC 27215



Thanks to the Track Your Plaque Members who have already participated in this campaign and written to the LabCorp people. And thanks to our Members who uncovered the contact information.

Until then, please BOYCOTT LABCORP LABORATORIES. Please do not use LabCorp Laboratories if you can avoid it. Simply ask the laboratory staff who operates the lab and they should tell you. It is your right to know.
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Comments (13) -

  • Anonymous

    8/27/2007 3:48:00 AM |

    Can you get the page 2 result directly from Liposcience?

  • Dr. Davis

    8/27/2007 4:04:00 AM |

    We've tried and encountered resistance.

    The Liposcience people have deferred to LabCorp when the results were delivered via LabCorp. I believe that  Liposcience is honoring the terms of a contract. LabCorp is serving its own misguided purposes.

  • Anonymous

    8/27/2007 7:48:00 PM |

    Dr. Davis,

    When you get VAP results from  Quest all the info is included,to include the ApoB100.

    LabCorp reports almost all the info except the ApoB100 number. So, they don't include one line not a whole page.  I realize this may not help LabCorp much and may just be more fuel to the fire, but I thought you should know.

    The nice thing about VAP is that you get Lp(a) without having to pay for an additional test like you do if you want NMR and Lp(a).

    Thanks and keep up the good work!

  • Anonymous

    10/26/2007 2:58:00 PM |

    As a former employee of LabCorp, I would like to offer another possibility, they just screwed up.  The aim of top management has been to run up the stock price (and the value of their stock options)at the expense of their clients and employees.  The IT department in particular has been hard hit by corporate corner-cutting that has turned the flow of information from client to lab and back again into a nightmare. Losing a page of data from patient results is a very real possibility. MacMahon et. al. have been made aware of these problems in the past and yet continued their destructive policies.  I seriously doubt they will pay any attention to your complaints now.  Protect yourself and just go elsewhere.

  • Anonymous

    4/13/2008 6:05:00 PM |

    As another former employee, I tried sharing similiar concerns about issues like this, and they ended up firing me. Take your business elsewhere!

  • Labcorp Sucks

    4/27/2008 2:38:00 AM |

    LabCorp Sucks! I have had so many problems with them that I finally got fed up and created a website just to document all the complaints that people have against this sorry excuse for a clinical lab company, www.labcorpsucks.com. We will be taking all the complaints and providing them to investigative agencies in government. While they have some very nice people working for them, the majority of their mid-level managers are incompetent. Maybe after they are all unemployed they will "get it". Al - www.labcorpsucks.com

  • Anonymous

    5/23/2008 9:31:00 PM |

    Hi Dr. Davis, we've got the same problem, except it's with a hemochromatosis test that was just run. When we get my husband's blood iron count levels tested at the Red Cross, the nurses always raise their eyebrows, and say, my goodness! You have a LOT of iron in your blood!
    My husband was adopted in NC, which is THE hotspot for JH (juvenile hemochromatosis) in the United States. He has all the symptoms, has suffered them since he was very little, and they've become increasingly worse over the years. Doctors have looked him over and have never been able to figure out what is wrong. Some even told him he was simply lazy! We finally stumbled across this website for JH one day... and said, Eureka! That's EXACTLY it! He feels a million times better after he's bled... which gradually worsens over the next day or two, but for that little while, he's free of pain and loves life.
    So we went to get him tested, and guess what... the results came back "negative." What the heck does "negative" mean? There are numbers for each test, right? We are looking for an independent blood lab with a commitment to quality... do you have any suggestions? We fear that the damage to his organs is so great that he needs help NOW, if you have any suggestions, we'd love to know! The tests are total iron binding count, serum iron and serum ferritin.

    I must confess that I have worked at the Burlington location of LabCorp and have witnessed lab techs goofing off instead of watching the tests done, some of them timed precisely to give the accurate reading. Many of the people there are hired because of nepotism or cronyism and do not have the skills necessary or the lab degrees that they should, but have been "grandfathered" in. I know others who have worked there who ran microbiological testing and would screw up entire batches of gram pos/neg tests because they couldn't run the machine right... HUNDREDS of tests to be run again. If they sit too long, you get false positives and negatives... way to go... you could be dying, and you won't know! Way to go!

    We're thinking about suing them if we get independent lab tests done and they come back positive (which they should... it's just a classic case). It's a fatal disease and he needs immediate help.

  • Anonymous

    6/26/2008 3:23:00 AM |

    You need to have an unsaturated iron binding capacity done, all of the other test could be negative but very few labs calculate this test.  It is the most important when testing for hereditary hemachromatosis.  I broght  it up to our lab manager about a month ago and we started running it with all of our iron profiles.  We are starting to see more positives of this test along with the negatives on the total iron, tibc and iron saturation.  This test really makes a difference.  Feel free to email me, I would be happy to give you some advice.  cjpirkle@hotmail.com

  • Anonymous

    1/16/2009 1:46:00 AM |

    I have even a more serious complaint with this lab. I am a patient of a doctor for chronic pain and nasty panic attacks.

    It cost me $240 cash to have a drug test to prove to my doctor I AM taking both my pain and nerve meds. It's true, the UNINSURED people are the ones paying the price, we get charged the FULL RATE, medical insurance will negotiate a much lower price (I tried and they laughed at me!!) Well people, I hate too tell you this, but my results were NOT accurate and it may very well cost me my sanity and even my job if I have no meds during a work related panic attack I will be unable to work and likely will end up in the hospital, still with no medical insurance. I did everything I was supposed to to as told and directed.

    The medication not detected was Klonopin (Clonazepam)- I have needed and taken this medication along with my pain killers for years, and now my life is much better and I can once again work for a living. Because of this screwed up test result my life now is in the hands of LabCorp and my doctor. - Most likely I will end up in a hospital if my doctor cuts me off. I’m in shock over this. I’m innocent. I can not understand what the problem is with the lab not detecting this particular nerve/panic med, but I have read that it’s happening to others too.

    I have found much evidence that shows how the most expensive drug testing labs can go by NOT detecting Klonopin (Clonazepam)in patients that take it- and you can bet I have submitted all of such information to my doctor. This is my life as I know whats at stake here, (A LOT!!) and for $240 one would think a lab could find a med I was taking every single day for years, and even on the day of the drug test.

    I had to pay CASH $$ for my drug test, so I hate their rates AND their screwed up lab work. My life as I know it is in the hands of a bunch of people that can screw up my life for a very long time. I suggest NOBODY uses this drug testing company.

    Now I have to worry about real life nightmares hitting me while I drive, all because of a drug test that was wrong and a doctor that places too much faith in such tests. I’m not very happy, and I’m broke. I did nothing wrong and I fear there must be many others just like me in the same boat. Doctors should not place so much faith in these drug tests- they can be WRONG!

          ME

  • buy jeans

    11/2/2010 7:41:06 PM |

    To me, this LabCorp policy is criminal. In fact, I wonder if this has the substance to justify a class action lawsuit against LabCorp. I believe that we can easily make a case that crucial health information is being systematically denied to people.

  • Anonymous

    4/2/2011 9:28:39 PM |

    As a fromer employee and department manager for Labcorp I do now that from a Legal standpoint we are a third party that is contracted with your primary care physician to do you lab work.  If you ahve not received all of the information on a lab report then you need to bring thast up with your primary care physician.  We are only aloowed to release information directly to them in most cases, becasue we are a third party.  More often than not the final page of a report does not have anything on it but Labcorp information and nothing related to your test results.  As I said before the best option would be to go to your primary care physician and find out if they have the second page you are looking for and if not get them to request the page you are looking for or get a form of permission from your Dr to release this information to you.  The second part of this could take a little while becasue of our legal responsibilities in our contracts with the Dr's.  The lab that Iworked in was very thorough and caring about their patients and would have taken the time to explain why we could not release these results directly to you.  It is unfortunate that the lab you worked with did not take then time to help you further in your quest.  As with most compnaies some locations are not run as well as others.

  • pjnoir

    4/19/2011 7:27:52 PM |

    okay its 4/2011    has anything changed?   I need to get this test done. what are my options?  I do get the numbers I need, right?

  • dr. mason

    2/27/2013 1:36:14 PM |

    Feb 2013
    LabCorp in Palo Alto on Middlefield Rd.  was shocking.  I thought I was in the third world.
    Understaffed, specimens sat overnight, specimen box on floor outside on sidewalk, rude and very
    stressed staff person working alone and doing the job of 3 people taking it out on the customers.
    Our medical system is the worst of all the developing countries and the most expensive.    Blood
    analysis is the heart of that system and if its completely deteriorated and no monitoring agency is
    able to enforce standards, then what hope is there?  something is terribly wrong.

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