Workplace Wellness with David A. Dexter

President and CEO, Sonora Quest Laboratories, LLC
President and CEO for Laboratory Sciences of Arizona, LLC

What innovations and/or products have you launched recently or are preparing?

Sonora Quest is committed to providing innovative solutions to assist in improving health outcomes, including employers and employee wellness. One key to employee wellness is awareness. By providing employees with recommended screenings to help identify potential disease or health risks as early as possible, employees can take a proactive approach to manage their health more effectively.

Other key factors are convenience and affordability to ensure patients get the diagnostic testing needed to monitor their health. With 75 Patient Service Centers located throughout Arizona, including 14 in Safeway stores, Sonora Quest has worked to improve access to convenient locations for lab services and offer easy-to-use online appointment scheduling.

Beginning in spring of 2019, patients in Maricopa County will have the opportunity to schedule a phlebotomist to come to them at their home or place of business for laboratory collection services at a reasonable cost. This convenience removes barriers from completing laboratory testing recommended by their doctor.

For those who choose to take control of their own health, patients can order their own lab tests without insurance or doctor’s order through our My Lab ReQuest™ menu, which offers affordably priced wellness screens and tests to monitor chronic conditions or disease. This service is a great way to support local businesses who have wellness programs or goals in place to enable their employees to be proactive in managing their health, with results available in three to five days through our SonoraQuest.com secure patient results portal.

With the increase of high-deductible health plans, some employees may be skipping recommended screenings or critical monitoring of existing chronic conditions such as diabetes. Sonora Quest has programs to provide flexible payment options, including discounted pay-at-time-of-service rates and a collaboration with CarePayment® for a zero percent financing option with extended payment terms to make healthcare more affordable and accessible.

To provide a sense of what is happening in the industry, please share the challenges you are addressing to enable superior healthcare services for your clients.

The healthcare system is moving from volume and fee-for-service to value and bundled payment; this is transformational and disruptive. This transition is causing a fundamental shift from acute care to preventive care and wellness, to prevent chronic disease — where laboratory results and data analytics can fully support population health to dramatically improve patient outcomes and generate interventional savings. The challenges and opportunities this market transformation offers are numerous, and Sonora Quest is forging ahead with innovative solutions to address the tremendous opportunities to improve quality, healthcare outcomes and cost of care.

In what way(s) are you focused on helping business?

Another solution available to improve employee engagement and workplace wellness is to schedule an employer-sponsored on-site health fair where Sonora Quest employees will perform phlebotomy at the business’s location. Whether self-ordered through our My Lab ReQuest program, or requested under the oversight of a physician, employees/patients can access their test results online within days and have more meaningful and focused discussions with their healthcare provider — focusing on how to improve their results and overall health.

About Sonora Quest Laboratories

Sonora Quest is the market share leader in clinical laboratory testing in Arizona with 3,200 employees serving more than 23,000 patients every day statewide. We perform more than 60 million diagnostic tests per year and serve the entire continuum of healthcare. We offer a local comprehensive test menu that encompasses routine, molecular, prescription drug monitoring, cytogenetic, pathology and direct-to-consumer testing services.

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