Quest Diagnostics is now our preferred laboratory vendor
Effective July 1, 2007, Quest Diagnostics will be our preferred provider of laboratory services for all products. Your plan’s laboratory costs will be lower while your employees’ access to services will be maintained, under a new, five-year agreement we have made with Quest — the nation’s leading provider of diagnostic testing, information and services
Changing to manage health care costs
We are changing our national lab network contract in an effort to proactively manage health care costs, while continuing to offer excellent access to lab services. Quest has more than 2,000 patient service centers and performs testing for approximately 550,000 patients each day. It serves approximately half of the doctors and hospitals in the United States.
This change also means that LabCorp will no longer be a network provider, effective July 1, 2007.
Agreement provides cost-effective services, extensive access
As Aetna’s preferred provider, Quest will offer an improved laboratory cost structure to our members and their doctors. Its network is well positioned to serve our members’ needs:
- Size. Quest offers an extensive nationwide network of testing sites, with more than 2,000 patient service centers, approximately 150 rapid response laboratories, 30-plus regional laboratories and esoteric (specialized) testing laboratories on both coasts.
- Doctor Use. The majority of our participating primary care physicians already have selected Quest to provide laboratory testing services for their Aetna patients. We are reaching out to the rest so they can make arrangements that best meet the needs of their patients who are Aetna members.
- Convenient Sites. We have done a careful analysis of sites where our members use LabCorp facilities today; 97.5 percent of these sites have at least two Quest or local participating facilities within 5 miles of the LabCorp site. This means the change can be made with very little disruption.
- Network Growth. We and Quest have identified markets that would benefit from additional sites. We will contract with additional local laboratories in these markets as needed.