“Workload limits” and CLIA 88 in the 1990's: How much is too much? Or too little?
✍ Scribed by Dina R. Mody; Diane D. Davey; Tilde S. Kline
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1997
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 16 KB
- Volume
- 16
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 8755-1039
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
b) The laboratory is responsible for ensuring that each individual engaged in the evaluation of cytology preparations . . . examines no more than 100 slides (gynecologic or nongynecologic, or both) in a 24 hour period, irrespective of the site or laboratory. This limit represents an absolute maximum number of slides and is not to be employed as a performance target for each individual.
COMMENTS: ''Some were concerned that the 8 hour limit may have an adverse effect on quality as some laboratories may make 8 hours a target time period for cytotechnologists to screen the workload minimum.'' RESPONSE: ''We emphasize again that this is an absolute maximum and is not to be construed as a target number of slides for every individual.''
The Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988 (CLIA 88) established a maximum workload limit for cytotechnologists and primary screening pathologists as 100 slides per day over an 8 hour working day. A key player toward enactment of the bill was Bogdanich, in his Wall Street Journal articles with headlines entitled ''Lax laboratories'' and ''Cut-rate Pap mills'' process slides using screeners with incentives to rush. 2 A special incentive was the Piecework payment per slide providing a financial incentive for cytotechnologists to screen a greater number of slides.
While the CLIA 88 workload limits were welcomed by most in the cytology community, the welcome certainly