A Conversation With the Nation’s Health IT Chiefs

February 19, 2012 | Priors

Attestation for stage 1 meaningful use is underway in radiology, and expectations are rising about the ability of IT to reduce cost and increase quality in health care. In separate interviews with Radiology Business Journal, Farzad Mostashari, MD, ScM, national coordinator for health IT, and Todd Park, CTO for the... Read More »

Commodity Practice or Experience Monopoly?

February 19, 2012 | The Bottom Line

Imagine that your practice has been barreling down the health-care highway for years. Now, though, there’s a T intersection straight ahead, with one route leading to completely commoditized health care and the other (the road far less traveled) leading to high-touch, high-quality care—to an experience monopoly. This... Read More »

Rehabilitating the E Word

February 19, 2012 | Adview

The upside to Berwick being shown the door in Washington is the pleasure to be had in reading his first major talk¹ since leaving the office of CMS administrator on December 2, 2011. The occasion was the 23rd Annual National Forum on Quality Improvement in Health Care of the Institute... Read More »

New Payment Models: Where Culture and Business Intelligence Meet

February 17, 2012 | NONE

The specifics of how the traditional radiology practice model will fit with the emerging paradigm of the accountable-care organization (ACO) remain unclear, but it is clear that radiologists should be thinking about how to bend the cost and quality curves, according to Ted Kerner, MD, CEO of Triad Radiology... Read More »

New World, New Infrastructure: Informatics Requirements of Emerging Payment Models

February 17, 2012 | NONE

Much has been said and written in anticipation of new payment models like the accountable-care organization (ACO), but one consideration that often falls by the wayside, in all the talk of risk and reward, is informatics, Tom Smith says. Smith is CIO of Triad Radiology Associates (Winston-Salem, North Carolina). �... Read More »

ACOs and the Radiology Practice: Adding and Quantifying Value

February 17, 2012 | NONE

The stated aims of accountable-care organizations (ACOs) mirror the triple aim proposed by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (Cambridge, Massachusetts), and both sets of goals have one common thrust: placing the patient at the center of the health-care continuum. As Linda Skarzynski, CFO for Triad Radiology Associates (Winston-Salem, North... Read More »

Analytics Key to Catalyzing Change

February 17, 2012 | NONE

The central goal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is, as its name suggests, to restore patients to their rightful place as the center around which US health care revolves. Though the legislation is complex, the goal is simple: to incentivize an overburdened, decentralized system toward... Read More »

Imaging in the Global Marketplace: A Conversation With Stephen Pomeranz, MD

February 11, 2012 | Imaging Futures

As radiology practices continue to grow in size via mergers, partnerships, and other forms of consolidation, the model of the nationwide practice is beginning to appeal to many. ProScan Imaging (Cincinnati, Ohio) owns 24 freestanding imaging centers in the United States, and it offers teleradiology services both nationally and internationally.... Read More »

Outsourced Billing: An Administrator’s View

February 11, 2012 | Revenue Track

The decision to outsource a radiology practice’s billing can be emotionally fraught. Many practices have historically employed sizable in-house billing departments, and though the decision to outsource might appear simple from an economic perspective, when it comes to putting people out of work, administrators understandably blanch. Further, while... Read More »

The Business Case for Pediatric Imaging: Kids’ MRI at Lourdes Hospital

February 11, 2012 | RadBrand Builder

Lourdes Hospital in Binghamton, New York, knew that it was losing pediatric MRI patients to a local imaging center with a 0.6T open MRI system, but it wasn’t until the imaging department started collecting data and tracking how many phone calls a day it received inquiring about open... Read More »

Mergers and Acquisitions: Putting a Price on Reputation

February 11, 2012 | Deal Scan

The concept of personal goodwill in the mergers and acquisitions of imaging centers occupies a decidedly intangible realm. John P. Holman, JD, an attorney in the Falls Church, Virginia, office of law firm Reed Smith LLP, has seen negotiations play out largely over the goodwill issue, with patience and... Read More »

Service and Support Are Critical to PACS Success

February 11, 2012 | Productivity

Like many radiology practices in the United States, Premier Radiology (Nashville, Tennessee) has seen its share of changes over the past few years. James C. King, MD, radiologist and owner, says, “It’s been a tumultuous time. Six years ago, we had one outpatient center; now, we have nine.... Read More »

Can You Compete With South Korea?

February 11, 2012 | The Big Picture

There is no question that the competitive environment for medical-imaging services has become much more intense in recent years. As prices erode and certain commoditization sets in, branding, messaging, and the ability to differentiate a value proposition are becoming critically important to the success of hospitals, imaging centers, and... Read More »

Riverside Radiology: Growing the Practice with Imaging Informatics

February 10, 2012 | NONE

When Riverside Radiology and Interventional Associates (Columbus, Ohio), one of the largest radiology practices in the United States, went to PACS vendor FUJIFILM Medical Systems USA (Stamford, Connecticut) to make some custom changes to its Synapse platform, Fuji representatives were all ears.

Jim Morgan, vice president of... Read More »

ARA’s Box Workflow Redefines the Practice-productivity Platform

February 10, 2012 | NONE

When one of two largest hospital groups in the Austin, Texas, area decided to implement PACS, CIO R. Todd Thomas of the Austin Radiological Association (ARA) had some choices to make for his night coverage. Although ARA had mostly blanketed the area with Synapse PACS (FUJIFILM Medical Systems USA,... Read More »

Medford Group Ups Productivity Ante with PAS/RIS/VR Integration

February 10, 2012 | NONE

As the largest radiology practice in a 150-mile radius, Medford Radiological Group (MRG), PC, in Oregon enjoys significant demand for its imaging services from referrers near and far. Michael Troychak, MD, MRG’s president, says that satisfying such demand and (most important) providing the caliber of patient care that... Read More »

Commoditization of Imaging: Fighting the Trend

January 14, 2012 | Imaging Futures

As a macroeconomic phenomenon, commoditization is fairly characteristic of a maturing marketplace—two words that describe radiology in the United States perfectly. As the industry has matured, through increased competition and more deleterious economic pressures, radiology practices have increasingly found themselves competing on price alone, raising the risk that... Read More »

Valuation of Imaging Centers: 2012 Outlook

January 14, 2012 | Deal Scan

If one were to chart trends in physician employment over the past 15 years, the result would closely resemble the recent wild swings seen in the stock market: significant peaks followed abruptly by equally sharp declines, according to Kevin McDonough, CFA, a senior manager for VMG Health (Dallas, Texas).

The Business Case for Patient-centered Care

January 14, 2012 | Revenue Track

As part of a growing trend toward giving increasingly savvy patients greater control over their health care, radiologists are taking a more active role in patient-centered care, tailoring their practices to meet consumer needs. Putting the patient first might seem obvious or intuitive, but the idea has not always... Read More »

Beyond the RIS: Safeguarding Radiology Through Business Intelligence

January 14, 2012 | Quality

Paul Chang, MD, professor and vice chair of radiology informatics and medical director of enterprise imaging for the University of Chicago, believes radiology practices must evolve to survive—and that the path forward is to become more collaborative with clinical partners, survive on fewer reimbursement dollars, improve workflow, and... Read More »

Just Following Orders

January 14, 2012 | The Big Picture

My column last month, on accountable-care organizations (ACOs) and the same-old, same-old business model, generated some interesting responses. One, in particular, got me thinking about the evolution of radiology and where the profession finds itself today, relative to the... Read More »

Developing the Oncology Service Line: What Providers Should Know

December 26, 2011 | NONE

Demand for oncology services is on the rise, and that has hospitals around the country looking at either adding a new or bolstering an existing oncology service line, says Timea Zsiray, oncology marketing manager for GE Healthcare (Waukesha, Wisconsin). “The Journal of Clinical Oncology projected that by 2030 there will... Read More »

ACOs: Help or Headache?

December 26, 2011 | NONE

Opinions about health care reform are plentiful, but Thomas H. Lee, MD, would rather hear solutions. When last year’s Affordable Care Act offered a new model called accountable care organizations (ACOs), Lee assessed the entity’s viability in his role as network president of Partners HealthCare System, based... Read More »

Telehealth to the Rescue: LVHN’s Approach to Extending Care

December 26, 2011 | NONE

At the Health IT Summit of the Institute for Health Technology Transformation, held in August in Seattle, Washington, speakers from health care facilities and professional groups around the country gathered to compare notes on the summit’s theme, “Unleashing the Power of mHealth and Telemedicine.” Among them was Joseph... Read More »

The Radiologist As Ambassador: Integrating On-site and Off-site Reading at Lima Memorial

December 19, 2011 | Quality

When Daniel Schultz, DO, accepted a position with Radisphere (Cleveland, Ohio, and Westport, Connecticut) five years ago, he was particularly excited about the prospect of a combined on-site and off-site radiology practice. “I saw it as a way to practice my specialty, but also to rely on my colleagues... Read More »