NEW YORK (360Dx) – Attis Industries announced today it has received CLIA certification for its new 1,800-square-foot toxicology laboratory in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The lab, which is nearing completion, will be dedicated to running samples reimbursed by Medicare and Medicaid only.
The lab had previously received COLA accreditation for laboratory quality assurance.
"The company can immediately finalize its application for Medicare coverage for all states and its Medicaid coverage for the states of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Texas, Colorado and New Mexico," said Jeff Cosman, CEO of Attis Industries, which is an integrated technology and innovations holding company. "The importance of these final steps in our transition of Attis Healthcare will allow us to provide our growing customer base with a comprehensive laboratory solution for their federal samples."
The company expects the new lab will test a baseline of 3,000 toxicology samples per month by the end of 2018, which trends to approximately $600,000 per month of revenue and more than $7 million in revenue for 2019. The company also expects to add blood testing to the new lab by the end of the year. By the second quarter of 2019, Attis expects the combined number of blood and toxicology samples in the new lab to be between 5,000 and 8,000 per month.
The company began focusing on building its own labs, partnering with independent contractors with broad reach across the country, and focusing on a Medicare and Medicaid and a physician/provider-customer friendly model in rural parts of the country in late May. The new focus was made in response to a realization that the healthcare business was subject to variable factors such as non-competes with ex-employees, commission reimbursement issues from third party reference lab processors, and billing reimbursement issues with commercial payors who arbitrarily delayed paying for services, according to the company. To eliminate the possibility of third-party lab processors negatively impacting the customer base, Attis decided to selectively reduce the samples directed to other labs until the CLIA lab in Tulsa opened.
In addition beginning development of the new Tulsa lab, Attis industries initiated several other healthcare initiatives in the second quarter, including signing a seasoned sales force with an estimated 300 representatives across the US. The sales force drives blood and toxicology samples to the company from physician practices and is expected to deliver revenue growth in the third quarter. These initiatives are expected to replace lost revenue from the company's sale of its waste management business in April.