Laboratory outreach then and now: the Oregon experience.

Outreach programs, designed to extend hospital testing services to non-inpatient audiences, developed during the 1970s and early 1980s under the pressure of reimbursement restriction. Both the federal government and other third-party payers responded to the exponential explosion of health-care costs by attempting to limit and control reimbursement. In turn, hospital administrators and laboratory directors, looking for revenue streams to lessen the financial impact of these initiatives, recognized that the clinical laboratory represented an opportunity to capture revenue streams that were then flowing to independent and commercial providers. A recent review of the mature outreach market in the state of Oregon provides insight into the evolution of such programs and can be used by laboratory directors and hospital administrators to benchmark their own outreach activities. The experiences of both large and small hospitals in various stages of outreach development also provide a road map for those involved in strategic and business planning for community laboratory services.