New Year’s Resolutions for Radiology

It’s a new year for radiology. As a recent analysis in JACR reminds us, since the DRA cuts to imaging took effect in 2007—has it really been five years?—the industry has seen a cascade of changes. Provisions of the HITECH Act and health care reform legislation continue to take hold, prompting an array of dramatic responses from hospitals and practices: sales, joint ventures, mergers and consolidation, all motivated by the underlying imperative to do more with less.

With so much to handle on a day-to-day basis—meaningful use! Reimbursement cuts! Coding changes! Managing self-pay patients!—it can be hard to step back and think of the big picture. But as multiple thought leaders underscored at RSNA, big-picture thinking is more important than ever for a specialty in the crosshairs.

With that in mind, I suggest radiology come up with some new year’s resolutions to call its own. Will your practice or department resolve to be more patient-centric in the coming year? To improve service to referrers? To embrace structured reporting? To develop an IT strategy? To open up a new service line? To wean itself off teleradiology, or on the flipside, to leverage teleradiology for more growth?

We want to hear your concerns and priorities for the year ahead, and we’ll be here with you, every step of the way, to bring you the information and analysis you need to support the changes you’ll make in 2012.