Allina’s lab work move is another blow to the well-being of patients

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In another troubling move toward the corporatization of health care, Allina Health recently announced that it will be transferring most clinic-based lab work to Quest Diagnostics, a for-profit company (Business, July 2). I am a family doctor at the Allina Health Vadnais Heights Clinic, one of the 60-plus clinics affected. With this decision, Allina is choosing to deny access to vital same-day laboratory testing for patients across the metro area. Lab delays are just the latest move by Allina executives to decrease access to health care for the patients they are obligated to care for.

The most glaring impact of this decision is that many Allina clinics will no longer offer important same-day lab tests that we rely on to quickly diagnose common conditions like urinary tract infections and anemia (low red blood cell count). Among other concerns, we are also losing our ability to immediately check a white blood count, a test we use to look for serious infections. Many clinics will only be offering bare minimum same-day testing like rapid strep tests and urine pregnancy tests.

With the lab services we currently have, if you or your family member came to my clinic with a concern about bleeding or a serious infection, I would be able to check labs and have results at the time of your visit to appropriately treat you or, if needed, recommend you go to the hospital. With the lab services we are losing, the results of the needed lab tests would not be available until the following day. How would you feel about paying for an office visit only to be told you have to wait until tomorrow to see if your infection looks serious or you need a blood transfusion? How would you feel about needing to wait 24 hours until you can get treatment for a possible urinary tract infection when a nearby clinic could treat you immediately?

The decision to limit access to medical care will make our already suffering health system worse. When people realize that they won’t be able to have the same-day laboratory testing they need at their Allina Clinic, they will go to already overburdened emergency rooms or urgent-care clinics. I have never in my career even considered not having this basic lab testing available for my patients and it certainly does not reflect the appropriate standard of care for the metro area.

Denying access to many important same-day lab tests at Allina clinics is another decision in a concerning trend by Allina Health executives to decrease care available to patients. Last year, Allina was found to be cutting off access to care for patients who owed as little as $4,500. Over the last four years it has closed birth centers in River Falls, Hastings and Cambridge. Last month, it shut down the pediatrics unit at Mercy Hospital. This is also the second time this year it has transferred a major part of its business to a for-profit company. In May, Allina transferred 2,000 IT employees to Optum, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group.

As an employee, I am told these decisions are made for financial reasons, but other nonprofit health care companies are getting by without these cuts to patient care. In addition, the most recently available tax documents from 2022 show that Allina Health executives gave themselves raises of 20-30% between 2021-22. Allina’s CEO, Lisa Shannon, was given a 29% raise and made $2.72 million in 2022. A nonprofit health system like Allina is supposed to give to the community, not take from the community.

The corporatization of health care was a key factor that led to the unionization of more than 700 providers at Allina last year. I and my colleagues on the front lines of health care want Allina to thrive. But if Allina continues to sell off parts of its business to for-profit companies and to decrease needed health services, what will the future of Allina, and of you and your family, look like? Allina Health brings in $5 billion per year. It pays its executives millions and is tax-exempt from hundreds of millions of dollars due to its nonprofit status. It can do better, and needs to, for patients.

Dr. Matt Hoffman lives in St. Paul. A counterpoint to this article, “Allina’s new lab partnership won’t impede urgent testing or care,“ by members of an advisory council for that organization, was published July 18.