Tulsa, OK Facility Expected to Process 5,000 – 8,000 Blood and Toxicology Samples per Month, Generating Over $1 Million Revenue per Month by Mid-2019
MILTON, GA, Aug. 07, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Attis IndustriesInc. (NASDAQ:ATIS) (the“Company” or “Attis”),an integrated technology and innovations holding company, today announced that it has received the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendment (CLIA) certification for its new toxicology laboratory in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Company recently announced it was nearing completion of the 1,800 square foot laboratory in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which will be dedicated to running samples reimbursed by Medicare or individual state Medicaid programs only (“federal lab”).
Now that Attis has received its CLIA certification for the federal lab, the lab can begin processing samples from across the country. The federal lab had previously received its COLA accreditation for laboratory quality assurance. “Building and securing CLIA certification for our first internally developed standalone lab has positioned Attis Healthcare for growth in the second half of 2018 and momentum for accelerated growth in 2019. The Company can immediately finalize its application for Medicare coverage for all states and its Medicaid coverage for the states of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Texas, Colorado and New Mexico,” said, Jeff Cosman, Chief Executive Officer of Attis Industries. “The importance of these final steps in our transition of Attis Healthcare will allow us to provide our growing customer base with a comprehensive laboratory solution for their federal samples.”
At the beginning of the second quarter, the Company realized its healthcare business was subject to variable factors such as non-competes with ex-employees, commission reimbursement from third party lab processors (“reference”) as well as billing and reimbursement issues with commercial payors who arbitrarily delay paying for services provided by the Company. The resulting decision by the company was to focus on building its own labs, partnering with independent contractors with broad reach across the country, focus on Medicare and Medicaid business and developing a patient-physician/provider-customer friendly model in rural parts of the country. The Company began work on all this in late May. In order to eliminate the possibility of third party lab processors negatively impacting our customer base, the Company decided to selectively reduce the samples directed to other labs until our CLIA lab in Tulsa, OK opened. Given the positive strides that the Company knew it was making and given the strength of its future pipeline in the healthcare business, the Company believed the risk in potentially losing some of its accounts to these “reference” laboratories and veering away from its strategy outweighed the immediate need for revenue in connection with its blood and toxicology sample business.
As the Company works to replace the lost revenue from divesting itself of the waste management business, it has also successfully diversified its business during the past few months. Attis has focused on a number of unique projects in its healthcare business during the second quarter and expects these projects to generate revenue immediately. Specifically, the Company signed a seasoned sales force with an estimated 300 sales representatives across the United States. These sales representatives have successfully driven blood and toxicology samples from hundreds of physician practices over the last several years and project to bring significant revenue growth for the Company in the third quarter and beyond. The Company expects that its federal laboratory will be testing a baseline of 3,000 toxicology samples per month by the end of 2018, which trends to approximately $600,000 per month of revenue and over $7 million for 2019. The Company also expects to add blood testing to its federal laboratory by the end of the year, which will drive additional revenue growth for the Company moving forward. By the second quarter of 2019, we expect the combined number of blood and toxicology samples in the federal lab to be between 5,000 and 8,000 per month.
Cosman continued, “Our healthcare division is unique – we have the ability to process basic blood and toxicology samples as an interim step to revenue and cashflow growth in 2018 and beyond. However, the Company is developing more complex strategies in the lab business that focus on increasing the standard of care for the patient and physician/provider, setting their expectations to new heights while reducing healthcare costs at the employer level. The patient is the beneficiary of a new model of being healthy and the employer looks to eliminate the average of 18% yearly increases to their pharmacy spend. Attis Healthcare is executing on a stronger business plan eliminating all variable aspects of the healthcare business that will exceed expectations over the next two quarters and into the future.”
About Attis Industries Inc.
Attis Industries Inc. (NASDAQ: ATIS) is a holding company defined by our commitment to servicing our customers with unwavering respect, fairness and care. We are focused on finding and implementing solutions for the resource needs and challenges of our customers with a fundamental objective to seek rewarding solutions through technology and innovation. Our healthcare business centers on creating community-based synergies through collaborations and software solutions. Our innovation business strives to create value from recovered resources. For more information, visit: www.attisind.com
Forward-Looking Statements
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