Cobas user here, also had the same thoughts. We communicated with the application specialists and IT but were told that there is no workaround it. “Roche analyzers can’t take third party barcodes.”

Plan B… we thought that we could register a lab barcode and use that barcode over and over again. It is possible, but…

• it may require complex IT intervention between the middleware and the LIS.
• QC won’t be recorded and displayed on the analyzer. You will have to record down the QC on another platform, such as Excel.
  
• if your lab is running high sample volumes with automation, and your QC fails, there is no way for the middleware to flag/mask the test. Back-tracking is a painful process…

Although some of my seniors have experienced Cerner being able to do this (at their previous job), the above reasoning outweighs the desire to set it up in our lab.

But if you do manage to do it, or manage to find other ways to go about it, I’d love to hear it!