Cost to antigen type units

[Mabel Adams]

Does anyone have a good algorithm for determining how much it costs to antigen type a unit? Do you take into account each different anti-serum, its price, the frequency of use, the antigen frequency (i.e. how many units tested to find a negative), the controls run or do you use a more rough estimate like how much you spend in a year on anti-sera and how many tests you bill for?

[Likewine99]

Mabel, I've had to do this in the past to keep my organization's bean counters happy. They wanted a cost "per test" for an antigen screed based on CPT codes, so I calculated our cost for one unit screened for:

Our most commonly used antisera (All of the Rh's, Kell, Fya), and I included: reagent price (to the drop), number of controls run, cost of test tubes or gel cards (down to the price per well), tech time to do the test (in 0.25 increments of an hour), saline, pipettes, pipette tips, all things associated with testing.

Since the different antisera had different costs I gave them everything broken out by anti-sera and let them pick the one they "thought" was the most representative of what we had billed in the previous year.

I didn't waste my time trying to explain the nuances of Blood Banking theory, they were only interested in numbers anyway. This fun exercise did give me a fairly decent idea of what it costs to do this type of testing but it is nearly impossible to get it down to number of units you usually have to screen, etc.

Good luck and have fun:D

[AMcCord]

I cheat a little. I look at what the ARC charges us for antigen screening donors. I figure somebody in that organization did the calculations in great detail. They are buying reagents in volume and have staff efficiency since they are dedicated to that kind of work so their cost is going to be a bit less, but it's a place to start. I look at our numbers, average things based on what the most common antigens are (c, E, Jka), then compare us to them to give me an idea whether I'm in the ballpark. Then lab administration decides what they want to do with the numbers.

[Mabel Adams]

Blood suppliers have the advantage of historic types on donors so they probably test fewer positives, but otherwise you make a good point. Thanks.