The Economic Case for Patient-friendly Imaging

July 14, 2010 | RadBrand Builder

As the technology used for radiologic studies matures, providers and referrers are increasingly focused on providing patients with a friendlier imaging environment—with good reason, according to Tariq Gill, MD. “We need to make a conscious effort to make things nonthreatening,” he says. “In our community, we have three... Read More »

Relationships Gone Wild

February 15, 2010 | The Big Picture

All across the country, in markets large and small, a drama once considered unimaginable is unfolding in ways that are shaking the confidence of many radiology practitioners and creating tension within the ranks of hospital administrators. The issue relates to the unilateral breaking apart of longstanding exclusive contracts with... Read More »

Training Technologists to Smile

September 09, 2009 | RadBrand Builder

In many imaging offices, the reception staff is coached and scripted, and its members might even engage in role-playing exercises in order to create the best experience for patients.

Once patients have been checked in, the next people with whom they will come in contact are likely... Read More »

Developing Innovative Customer-service Initiatives

August 17, 2009 | RadBrand Builder

It could be the smiling greeter who welcomes patients into the facility, or the glasses of lemon water and the tray of cookies keeping them company in the waiting room. Perhaps the wide variety of magazines will make all the difference, or the new carpet.

Radiological Associates... Read More »

Place Your Bets

May 15, 2009 | The Big Picture

Do you think that for-profit freestanding outpatient imaging is a phenomenon destined to go the way of Tyrannosaurus rex? Some people do. Some are betting that the resurgence of hospital and health system interest in the outpatient revenue stream will eventually dwarf the freestanding market, rendering it obsolete. I’... Read More »

Back to the Future

May 02, 2009 | Final Read

In the publisher’s message for the inaugural issue of a new magazine, I wrote, in September 1987, “It will come as no surprise to you, an information leader, that the age of information has arrived bearing a new set of problems impacting business and industry. The main problem that... Read More »

Highly Functional Imaging

March 01, 2009 | Final Read

Great leadership will distinguish winning imaging organizations from those that struggle

I recently facilitated an all-day retreat for the management staff of a large hospital outpatient division that is part of a well-respected academic medical center. As I have done on many similar occasions, I asked the... Read More »

Reform’s Caveat Emptor

January 15, 2009 | The Big Picture

In 2009, we find ourselves in more than just another new year. A new presidential administration is about to take office, bringing with it a clean sweep of the various government bureau heads and cabinet secretaries who have been in charge of the levers of power for these past eight... Read More »

Bread Lines and Cab Lines

December 15, 2008 | The Big Picture

I’ll admit it. The constant drumbeat of depressing news in the business and popular press about the downturn in the world economy had me spooked as I traveled to the RSNA last week. Day after day, the relentless narrative of job losses, housing foreclosures, lost retirement wealth, and... Read More »

The Ultimate Road Trip

December 01, 2008 | Final Read

Just in time, radiology providers are arriving at an understanding of their unique branding propositions.

Are we almost there? That refrain is familiar to anyone who has ever taken young children on a long road trip. The kids get anxious and are easily bored, you get a... Read More »

On the Good Ship RBJ

December 01, 2008 | Adview

Reflections on the first year of the journey

What a year—what a breathless, heart-stopping, devastating, and hopeful year this has been for just about everyone I know, including all of us here at The Imaging Center Institute, publisher of Radiology Business Journal.

The year 2008... Read More »

The Usual Suspects

November 16, 2008 | The Big Picture

As I read the cover story on radiology benefit managers (RBMs) in this month’s Diagnostic Imaging (DI) magazine, I ruminated on the (metaphorical) similarities between the mug shots of what the author described as imaging’s new decision makers (the five reigning RBM CEOs) and the ensemble cast... Read More »

Imaging’s Déjá-vu Moment

October 16, 2008 | The Big Picture

My conversation with a prominent radiologist was startling, even as it piqued my journalistic interest. He was all doom and gloom, resigned to the fact that, in his strongly held opinion, the best days for radiology had passed. Nothing lies ahead except the detritus of a once lucrative and... Read More »

Magical Thinking Obscures the Goal: Improved Outcomes

September 15, 2008 | Heavy Traffic

High hopes have been pinned on the potential of IT to improve health care delivery here and around the world, but the current focus on standards may be misplaced, according to a new paper¹ published online on August 19, 2008, by Health Affairs. The authors draw on the observations and... Read More »

Radiologist, Find Your Voice

September 15, 2008 | The Big Picture

In a major front-page story, “The High Cost of Precision,” in its Sunday, September 7, 2008 edition, the Los Angeles Times once again focused on the negative side of CT technology. Its opening statement positioned its argument by saying, “CT scans produce detailed views of internal organs, but they expose patients... Read More »

Florida Hold’em

September 01, 2008 | Final Read

In the show down between Florida Hospital and Florida Radiology Associates, the winner took all

The story of what happened to the 60-person Florida Radiology Associates this past year has become the stuff of radiology legend. Indeed, RBJ will be publishing a comprehensive feature article on this... Read More »

Physicians and the E Word

September 01, 2008 | Adview

Physicians are understandably suspicious of efficiency efforts in medicine, but nowhere in the Hippocratic oath are they absolved from addressing the appropriate delivery of care

As we gallop toward the culmination of possibly the most entertaining—and important—presidential election in collective memory, the issue of health... Read More »

The Good, the Bad, and the Inspired

August 15, 2008 | The Big Picture

Finally, some good news for imaging. The eleventh-hour override of the president’s veto in early July saved the day for physicians, if only temporarily. Now, the bad news: The cumulative adjustments in the sustainable growth rate affecting the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule will now come due in a... Read More »

What’s With the Attitude?

July 15, 2008 | The Big Picture

At least half of the elements of various success formulas, in business and in life, relate to one’s ability to keep a positive outlook—especially when circumstances make it most difficult to do so. It is so easy to succumb to the temptation to curl up in a... Read More »

Growing Old Together

June 12, 2008 | The Big Picture

A lesson in business maturity: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer met the company’s cofounder Bill Gates when they were both undergraduates at Harvard. Gates dropped out to build one of the most successful companies in history. Ballmer went on to graduate from Harvard and eventually ended up at Stanford,... Read More »

To Read or Not to Read

May 15, 2008 | The Big Picture

As Shakespeare’s famous Prince of Denmark did, many radiologists I know struggle with choosing between two mutually exclusive paths to fulfillment. In Hamlet’s case, the idea of honorable revenge was countered by fantasies of ending it all. While not as draconian, the choice for radiologists is nevertheless... Read More »

The Politics of Greed

April 15, 2008 | The Big Picture

It has been said that all we need to focus on, in the daily battle for market share in the rough-and-tumble world of outpatient imaging, is a practice’s unique value proposition. Indeed, I am perhaps the most vocal proponent of increasing the level of professionalism of today’s... Read More »

20 Years in the Making

March 15, 2008 | Final Read

It was 20 years ago, almost to the day, that I created and launched the first issue of Imaging Economics, a publication that its editor, Cheryl Proval, and I subsequently built into a substantive magazine focused on the broad economic issues facing a then-transforming profession.

Having sold that... Read More »

Heeding the Clarion Call

March 15, 2008 | Adview

Like a POW on rice and water eating his first rib eye, an editor of a certain age finds no greater pleasure than getting her hands on 60-pound–paper stock after spending a year in the ether of electronic media. If you are reading this, I sincerely hope you... Read More »

The Loneliest Number

March 15, 2008 | The Big Picture

It has been said that the number one is the loneliest number, and it just may be that it is getting a whole lot lonelier. Illustrating this, the recently released 2007 Verispan Diagnostic Imaging Center Market Report features a section that depicts a dramatic change in the number of imaging... Read More »