+ Hospital-based Versus Freestanding Outpatient Imaging Services [PDF]
+ Cost Comparison: Hospital-based Versus Freestanding Outpatient Imaging Services [PDF]
+ Radiology-group Financial Performance [PDF]
+ Outpatient Imaging Utilization Trends [PDF]
+ The Radiology Staffing Market, Temporary and Permanent [PDF]
+ 2011’s Top 20 Imaging-center Chains: Second Annual Report
+ Productivity Pressure: IT Unlocks New Radiologist and Referrer Capabilities
+ New Payment Models and the Radiology Practice
+ Value-based Purchasing: From Theory to Practice
+ ITG Market Research: 70% of U.S. Hospital Execs Report Better Than Expected Q4 Performance
+ Press Release: Beaumont, Tex, Market Adds New Locally-Owned Diagnostic Imaging Center
+ Philadelphia Inquirer: Some Local Independent Hospitals are Fighting Consolidation Trend
+ MedPage Today Readers Weigh in on Allegations that Radiology Residents Cheat on Board Exams
+ JACC: Study Finds Many Cardiac Imaging Test Results Not Put to Good Use
Radiology efficiency: The leading edge
Smart Practice Decisions Begin with Data Integration Recording
Developing a Comprehensive IT Strategy for the Practice: Roles, Relationships, Resources
Centralized Imaging and Collaboration in Today’s Decentralized Imaging Business
Extreme RIS: Breaking Down Communication Barriers
Advanced Visualization | Next-generation Architectures
RIS to the Rescue | Strategies for Driving Revenue, Productivity and Profitability
Keep Your Hospital Relationships Healthy: Strategies for Every Practice
November 28, 2011 | NONE
Introduction: As pressures on reim- bursement and utilization continue to have an impact on the imaging market- place, radiology-staffing data suggest a shift in the availability and use of pro- fessional services over the past decade. This installment of the Imaging Market File tracks current and recent developments in...
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November 28, 2011 | Feature
Click the image to view The 75 Largest Private Radiology Practices | Click here to download the PDF
Introduction
During the break of a radiology-group retreat, a young radiologist was congratulating a radiologist 30 years his senior on his upcoming retirement. The young radiologist...
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November 28, 2011 | Adview
Tilting toward RSNA and entering the home stretch of 2011, I haven’t had a lot of time to reflect on the year, but I know that I am not alone. Everywhere I go, I hear a common chorus (no time!) followed by a plaintive refrain (at least I still...
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October 28, 2011 | Feature
While health-policy experts debate the potential of accountable-care organizations (ACOs) to address the problem of cost in US health care, a panel held on July 22, 2011, at the RBMA Executive Education Program in Scottsdale, Arizona, reveals that with prototype ACOs already in play and health-care systems assessing their ACO needs,...
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October 27, 2011 | Adview
I understand that the government does not want to spend money on an imaging examination that is unnecessary. As a fiscal conservative, I have an inherent distaste for waste and actively resent the idea of my tax dollars being spent on anything that isn’t necessary. When it comes...
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October 21, 2011 | NONE
Dose management (including dose-reduction strategies) is a dominant topic of conversation throughout the imaging world. Cross-disciplinary efforts to resolve the issue are moving to the forefront of both vendor and provider dockets, spurred on not least by quality metrics that tie reimbursement rates to patient outcomes.
At...
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September 04, 2011 | Feature
Reimbursement pressure, the rising cost of infrastructure, and trends in payor mix are putting continued downward pressure on radiologist compensation.
Introduction: This third installment of the Imaging Market File tracks four key financial-performance measures over time: payor mix, receipts per unit of service, administrative-infrastructure expense, and total...
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July 16, 2011 | Legislative Report
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act calls for early adopters to launch accountable-care organization (ACO) demonstration projects and shared-savings programs in 2012. The development of these value-added services and the general trend toward formation of ACOs will undoubtedly lead to changes not only in the acquisition of imaging technology...
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July 16, 2011 | The Big Picture
Here we go again: In a replay of the early, heady days when HMOs and managed-care models blurred the lines between payor and provider, we are again seeing health-care consolidation on a dizzying scale—which is almost obliterating that line completely. Two recent deals are emblematic of both the...
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July 04, 2011 | NONE
Radiology first felt the effects of the bundling initiative launched by CMS in 2010, with the creation of combined CPT® codes for myocardial perfusion, wall motion, and ejection fraction (78451–78454); arteriovenous shunt dialysis-catheter procedures, along with radiological supervision and interpretation (36147 and 36148); and facet-joint injection procedures that include imaging guidance (64490–64495).
July 04, 2011 | Feature
Medicare is looking for misvalued imaging codes—and it has already found several for which it has reduced payment. Its efforts have dismayed radiologists. Facing more revenue losses from CMS and the private insurers that follow in the agency’s footprints, radiologists feel targeted and, as a specialty, misvalued...
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July 04, 2011 | Priors
On June 7, 2011, at the Annual Summit of the RBMA in New Orleans, Louisiana, four CEOs and one senior leader—representing all five radiology benefit management (RBM) companies—participated in a panel discussion during a general session, “Face to Face With RBM CEOs: Shaping the Dialogue for Imaging’s New...
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July 04, 2011 | The Bottom Line
Radiology’s existing coding structure is undergoing a dramatic transformation, which is the product of numerous code screens being used by CMS and the RVS Update Committee to identify potentially misvalued services. The application of these code screens often results in the conversion of old codes to new codes....
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July 04, 2011 | Adview
The June 2011 MedPAC Report to the Congress1 has the undivided attention of the entire specialty, just days after its release—for good reason. Pages 27 through 59 detail the commission’s recommendations to curtail further the amount of imaging occurring in medicine and to redistribute professional income from image-reading specialties to...
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February 16, 2011 | Feature
Is it goodbye to radiology benefit management (RBM) companies and hello to automated decision-support systems? Not really, as the two aren’t mutually exclusive. Nonetheless, computerized decision-support tools are gaining ground in the outpatient setting.
With CMS about to begin a Medicare decision-support demonstration project for high-end...
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February 16, 2011 | Priors
It is no easy task to hit a moving target, so the seven speakers who presented the refresher course, “How Payment Policy Will Impact Technology Development in the 21st Century,” on November 30, 2010, at the annual meeting of the RSNA in Chicago, Illinois, diligently colored in the background of the...
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February 16, 2011 | The Bottom Line
The lack of consensus (and vision) in the imaging community is readily apparent when the topic of clinical decision support is raised. Clinical decision support allows for electronic documentation of the appropriateness of the imaging service ordered and provided, offering clinicians real-time guidance, rather than black-box rules.
December 12, 2010 | Regulatory Report
On November 30, the Physician Payment and Therapy Relief Act of 2010 was signed into law, delaying the 23% Medicare physician-payment cut mandated by the sustainable growth rate formula. The legislation replaced the cut with a 2.2% update through December 31, with the intention of giving Congress time to find a more permanent solution....
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December 12, 2010 | Deal Scan
Recently altered CMS rules governing diagnostic-imaging supervision and interpretation agreements have created what one knowledgeable observer calls a horrible mess. Health-care attorney Tom Greeson, a partner in the law firm Reed Smith LLP of Falls Church, Virginia, expresses concern that regulatory changes that took effect earlier this year might...
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November 28, 2010 | Feature
What happens when you cross a futurist and a radiologist?
In October 2010, Oxford University Press published The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: How Medical Imaging Is Changing Health Care, by Bruce J. Hillman, MD, the effective father of the ACR® Imaging Network, and Jeff C. Goldsmith, PhD, a health-care...
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November 28, 2010 | Feature
Automated decision-support systems to guide physicians who order advanced imaging exams for their patients have been promoted for years, but there have been few implementations. Now, CMS is launching a pilot study to see how well decision support works. It is the first test of decision-support systems applied on...
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November 28, 2010 | Feature
Click the image to view The 50 Largest Private Radiology Practices Click here to download the PDF
Introduction
A year ago, I would not have predicted the results...
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November 28, 2010 | Reimbursment
The list of entities with imaging in their crosshairs goes on and on, but when it comes to eroding reimbursement and enhancing oversight, the current primary culprits are CMS and Congress, according to Maurine Spillman-Dennis, MBA, MPH, director of economics and government relations for the ACR®. In the “ACR...
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November 28, 2010 | Adview
Those who know me even a little would never peg me as a Pollyanna, heroine of the 1913 novel of the same name by Eleanor H. Porter (1868–1920): a cheerful bundle of optimism with the gift of finding sunshine in even the darkest day. Even by those closest to me, I...
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November 15, 2010 | Legislative Report
Arnold Schwarzenegger, California’s governor, signed a new radiation patient protection law in October 2010 that mandates strict procedures and reporting requirements for CT scanners and radiation-therapy procedures, as well as the...
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+ AHRA | The Association for Medical Management
+ American College of Healthcare Executives
+ American College of Radiology
+ NSW Medical Radiation Scientists
+ Radiology Business Management Association
+ Radiology Meaningful Use Site
+ Radiological Society of North America
+ SIIM - The Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine