GreatLakes Laboratory Network
The GreatLakes Laboratory Network and Managed Care
The GreatLakes Laboratory Network (GLN) was formed in 1995 to offer hospital and health system outreach laboratory programs the ability to attract and administer health plan laboratory service agreements. Recognizing the growing desire of manage care organizations to simplify their operations by contacting with a single organization for laboratory testing services, GLN members joined together to respond by offering an organizational model allowing for a single source of contract negotiations, processing claims and issuing payments while still allowing each individual facility to perform testing services in its local community. The strategy was initially successful for some speciality services and regional contracting, but it became clear that to attract the statewide managed care contracts, more was needed.
Since GLN members were primarily located in the "out state" areas, collaboration with a Network located in southeast Michigan was necessary to offer statewide coverage. In 1999 GLN join forces with the Joint Ventures Hospital Laboratories network to provide the needed statewide coverage. The relationship was formalized with a Joint Operating Agreement in 2004 that remains in place to this day.
This relationship between the Networks has accomplished the payor goals of statewide coverage, once source claims processing and payment, and the ability to gather test result data that is needed to meet accrediting requirements and better managed care. On the hospital laboratory side, the relationship has resulted in access to many of the managed care laboratory service agreements issued within the state.
As a result of the Networks' success, patient data is more apt to be available in a single location with results from inpatient, emergency room, and outpatient services consolidated into a single patient medical record, leading to better patient care and decreased repeat testing.
For a complete listing of participating facilities in the combined network, click on the GLN/JVHL Laboratory Directory icon below or go to www.jvhl.org and select Health Plan Providers/Lab Directory.
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