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If you've read our post on the 5 Most Common CLIA Citations, you already know which requirements trip labs up the most. What that post didn't get into is why. And in my seven years as a CLIA surveyor, "why" mattered more than "what" almost every time. Labs weren't cited because they didn't care about compliance. They were cited because a requirement got misread, half-implemented, or inherited from a policy nobody had updated in years. "That's how we have always done it" is th

Watch or Listen on: Spotify or YouTube Some of the anxiety around CLIA surveys comes from one thing: not knowing what's actually going to happen. I get it. For most of the people reading this, a survey is a once-every-couple-years event, if that. There's no reason you'd know the rhythm of it the way I do, after 7 years of doing this for the Arkansas Department of Health and 12 years of experiencing it from the lab side. So let's fix that. Here's what an actual CLIA survey loo

If you're asking this question, you're not alone — and you're definitely not behind. Let's get you a clear answer. What Is CLIA? CLIA stands for the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments — federal regulations that establish quality standards for laboratory testing performed on humans, with the goal of ensuring accuracy, reliability, and timeliness of test results regardless of where in the United States the test is performed. In plain language: CLIA exists to make sure t

I spent 7 years walking into laboratories as a CLIA surveyor for the Arkansas Department of Health. In that time, I surveyed hundreds of labs — physician office labs, hospital labs, reference labs, you name it. And here's what surprised me most: the labs that got cited weren't full of people who didn't care. Almost every single one genuinely wanted to do things right. They just didn't know where the gaps were until I pointed them out. So today, I'm pointing them out to you —