Practicing pathology through multiple hospitals at multiple sites. Practice management issues.

Objective: To describe a successful method of management for pathologists to use in an environment of hospital consolidation and managed care.

Design: This article draws on the experience of a large, pathologist-owned regional laboratory in applying management principles needed for practice in the future.

Setting: A group of 20 pathologists, with 19 affiliated pathologists (multiple groups) practicing in rural and urban areas of five states in the Southern Plains.

Resource allocation and the cost of quality.

The costs of producing quality medical care and the proper allocation of resources to assure quality are major contemporary concerns. Minimalists attempt to improve quality and lower costs through the application of the theory, "less is more." Bureaucracies make the same attempt through the denial of payments for "unnecessary" services.