Hanging On and Holding Tight

During the "boom" years of the late 1990s-2008, lab fees made significant gains; in a number of cases, they caught up with or even exceeded the Consumer Price Index. It's not like the lab community has ever measured its fees against cost of living increases but, for the sake of observation, when LMT began tracking lab fees back in the 1980s, we sometimes looked at the rate of inflation as a sort of measure to record growth.

We are now on the cusp of year five since the economy went bust. As you will read in this issue's biennial Wage Report and next month in our Fee Report, the sense of being squeezed is making our headlines. Many laboratories report they are holding tight to old fee schedules and have also had to cut back on technician work hours. Once again, we are hearing a familiar story. Here's an excerpt from LMT's 1991 Wage and Price Survey Report:

" . . . Many laboratories can't afford to pay higher salaries because their...