About Carent

Patient FAQs

What is Carent Laboratory Solutions?
Carent is a network of hospital laboratories with primary draw sites in Colorado and Montana. We accept your insurance and offer you lab testing like any other lab but locally and of higher quality.

Does Carent take my insurance?
Check our Accepted Insurance lists here

Do I need an appointment?
Many of our labs do not require an appointment but we recommend finding the lab located most conveniently for you here then call the phone number for that lab to confirm the lab hours, lab order details, and any other questions.

Where are my lab results?
Log in to MyChart or MyBCH Patient Portal

How much do I owe for my lab tests?
Check out the Billing Patient Portal

Can I call the billing team with my lab bill questions?
Please contact our billing team

Why isn’t my Carent lab bill in MyChart or MyBCH?
Carent lab billing is processed by a different team than your other hospital bills. We know this can be confusing so please reach out to us with any questions

Lab Professionals FAQs

What is Carent Laboratory Solutions?
We are an alliance of hospital-based laboratories in the Rocky Mountain region with primary locations currently in Colorado and Montana. Carent Laboratory Solutions offers an opportunity to use hospital laboratories’ excess capacity to generate net new revenue for the hospital, minimize patients’ out of pocket expenses, keep testing local and of higher quality for patients, and utilize state of the systems and processes to bill more efficiently and effectively.

How does my local hospital benefit from membership in Carent Laboratory Solutions?
Carent offers these benefits to our hospital lab members in the alliance:

• Net new revenue for your laboratory
• Better utilize excess capacity of equipment and staff
• Decreased patient cost
• Compete with commercial labs

Carent’s hospital labs also enjoy these advantages:

• Sustain lab outreach efforts
• Increase hospital financial position through revenue generation
• Expand quality of care
• Enhance physician relationships and satisfaction by offering all forms of hospital outreach as a better solution to the limitations of commercial labs
• Enable patient choice and additional hospital services, and better coordination of care
• Decrease the cost of hospital-based testing services

Expand lab outreach with laboratory alliances

• Provide infrastructure and market identity to compete with commercial labs
• Decrease cost and turnaround times by utilizing alliance-wide testing capabilities

And Carent offers even more benefits.

Hospital care providers value having access to the complete clinical data set throughout the hospital system to see the entire history of the patient more easily. They also like the improved patient continuity of care because the bulk of the testing is performed right at the hospital lab down the hall or across the street. And care providers see reduced episode of care costs and duplicate testing through faster testing turn-around times and access to local pathologist consultation.

Why was Carent Laboratory Solutions formed?
Carent Laboratory Solutions was formed so hospital laboratories have the opportunity to provide laboratory outreach and outpatient services directly to their patients. Patient cost is the same as if they used a large, commercial laboratory, but in this case, the testing stays at the local hospital level. Hospitals can use their excess capacity to generate new revenue and lower their overall cost per test as well.

What is the purpose of Carent Laboratory Solutions?
Carent is an alliance that brings together hospital labs to participate in ancillary health plan contracts and give insurance companies and patients a viable alternative to commercial labs. We do this through single-source contracting using a Messenger Model in alignment with Federal Trade Commissions guidelines.

Carent’s health insurance partners find the Carent alliance model valuable in these ways:

• No interference to national contracts they already have with commercial labs
• Reduces plan leakage to regional, non-contracted labs
• Decreases costs of ancillary contracting with multiple hospitals because they are negotiating with Carent’s contracting management company on behalf of all Carent members per Federal Trade Commission guidelines
• Increases hospital lab member access to preferred in-network services
• All Carent hospital labs are billed under a common tax identification number (TIN) through one outsourced billing partner retained by Carent

How are Carent alliance patients billed for their labs?
Carent is organized under a common tax identification number and makes use of one outsourced claims processing and billing partner separate from the hospital processes. This ensures all labs are billed to insurance and not written off as too small to collect. Carent hospital labs are also able to track their lab revenues, revenues trends, and forecasting. Carent’s outsourced billing vendor handles patient billing customer service and if needed, works closely with Carent hospital labs to ensure patient satisfaction throughout the lab testing and billing experience.

Where are the Carent hospital lab tests performed?
As part of our mission to keep laboratory testing local almost all tests are performed by the local community laboratory members. In the event testing capabilities don’t allow the test to be performed by an individual member, they have the option of transporting it to another network member, such as another laboratory in the network or to contracted reference laboratories.

Carent is organized to keep testing local, right down the hall or across the street at the hospital laboratory. Carent’s hospital labs are able to offer integrated lab services across inpatient, outpatient, and physician office care settings by developing or growing outreach lab testing. Hospital care providers like that they have access to the complete clinical data set throughout the hospital system and see the entire history of the patient more easily.

Carent hospital labs continue to serve their traditional client base (provider clinics and other patient service centers), allowing them to improve patient continuity of care by performing the bulk of their testing locally. In the event testing capabilities don’t allow the test to be performed by the Carent hospital lab, they have the option of transporting the specimen to another Carent hospital lab or to their individually contracted reference laboratories. This reduces episode of care costs and duplicate testing through faster turn-around times and access to local pathologist consultation and extended consultation with contracted reference laboratories.