Currently, clinical laboratory diagnostics is one of intensively developing directions of medicine. This is due to the need for faster and more accurate methods of diagnostics of diseases, and technical capabilities of modern laboratory equipment. In this regard, professional terminology of this area is evolving, in contrast to the legislative base of the Russian Federation and a number of local regulations. At present there is not legal and professional definition of «laboratory healthcare», although the term is widely used in different sources of literature. In the article the authors consider a number of legal and local regulations for the definitions of some terms that are actively used in the field of clinical laboratory diagnostics. The proposed definition of laboratory healthcare includes not only the consistent implementation of action by conducting laboratory research (analytical stage of laboratory diagnostics), but all the topics involved in the concept of preanalytical and postanalytical stages. The introduced concept of «laboratory healthcare» will be the main consideration in the drafting of the Handbook of laboratory services, which is absent at present.