The most common reaction to our lab menu is polite disbelief. A complete blood count for $3.55? A lipid panel for $3.90? The assumption is that we are subsidizing it as a loss leader. We are not. Those are real prices with a normal margin structure — for the lab.
Where lab prices come from
Commercial laboratories run enormous automated analyzers; the marginal cost of running one more CBC through the machine is a few dollars at most. Labs happily sell tests to practices like ours at negotiated wholesale rates, cash, net-30. We pass that price through with zero markup — Cole draws the sample here, the courier takes it, results land the next morning.
Where the $78 comes from
The retail number on a hospital-system bill is a chargemaster price: an opening bid in a negotiation between the billing department and an insurer, inflated because it will be discounted, discounted because it was inflated. Layer in the blood-draw facility fee, the pathology review line, and the claim-processing cost baked into every step, and a $4 test becomes a $78 line item — of which the lab itself may see a fraction.
Why we publish the menu
Because the panic is the point. When a test costs a visible $4, members say yes to appropriate monitoring — the A1c gets checked twice a year, the lipids after the medication change. When it is an unknowable amount arriving weeks later, people decline tests they need. Transparent pricing is not a gimmick; it is a clinical tool.
The fine print, plainly
You approve every price before the draw. If you would rather run tests through your insurance at an outside lab — sometimes smart after a deductible is met — we send the order wherever you like and tell you when that path is genuinely cheaper. Specialized tests we do not stock at cost get quoted first. No surprises is the entire policy.