Lie, cheat and steal. They completely distort the facts in order to try to get business from the competitors.
If the "confirmation" of a negative screen is positive, all you have done is performed a more sensitive screen. The original result of negative was not confirmed, it was refutiated. For those immunoassays whose specific drug sensitivity is poor, screening and billing, and then screening and billing again using a more sensitive method "just in case" the first screen "missed" something is not good science nor good patient care. It is designed to maximize revenue for the lab.
A lot of offices will do a POCT in their office. If anything comes back out of line meaning something showed up that shouldn't or somthing didn't show up but should have then generally an office will send the specimen off to run a screen and confirmation test. There are lower cutoffs on immunossay tests and most labs do GC/MS confirmatory testing to detect specific metabolites that provide identification and quantification of a specific drug.Some office may ask just for a confirmation test on te results that show up out of line but that may not be that much cheaper, it depends on the lab. Most labs have one price for the screen and then another price for confirmation of each drug.
