Australia National Pathology Standards (First Edition 2027) 1.06: Referral laboratories: ensure Australian referral laboratories are accredited to the relevant NPAAC standards and ISO 15189, prefer accredited international laboratories, communicate costs and consequences such as data security to clinicians and patients, keep responsibility for packaging, transport and handover of international specimens, manage turnaround risks, receive reports and agree in writing who communicates critical results

What does 1.06 require?

A practice that sends specimens on to another laboratory needs a referral process covering seven points: domestic referral laboratories hold both NPAAC accreditation and ISO 15189; overseas laboratories with ISO 15189 or equivalent accreditation are chosen ahead of unaccredited ones; the referral laboratory's clinicians and the patient are told what they need to know, including that an overseas test attracts no Medicare rebate and its cost falls on the patient, and about consequences such as where data will sit; packaging, transport and handover of specimens sent abroad stay the sending practice's responsibility; the risks of using a referral laboratory, turnaround time among them, are managed; there is a route for the reports to come back; and the two laboratories agree in writing which of them will communicate a critical result.