by Curtis Kauffman-Pickelle
Today’s medical-imaging profession is definitely not for the fragile and weak-kneed among our colleagues. It is becoming increasingly clear that navigating the constant changes and challenges that face the practice of radiology today will be the ultimate test of tenacity, perseverance, and creativity. We’re in the playoffs now, and the game is moving to the big-time arena—where the margin for error is nil.
by Cheryl Proval
Physicians are in a real bind as fee-for-service reimbursement falls under attack and alternative payment methods (such as bundling and capitation) gain traction in Washington, DC. As of June 18, Medicare Part B claims were being processed with the 21.3% cut mandated by the sustainable growth rate’s formula, and House Democrats demanded legislation on jobs before they would pass the Senate bill to reverse the cut.
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Randy Roat, CHBME, VP of Radiology, MMP, and George Ehrhardt, CPA, Director, Practice Management, MMP
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Your hospital just installed a new multidetector CT (MDCT) scanner of 64 slices or more, and your emergency-department physicians are clamoring for a 24/7 coronary CT angiography (CCTA) service; now what?
The case for coronary CT angiography in the emergency department grows stronger every day, offering radiology practices that can deliver 24/7 interpretations a foothold in the exclusive field of cardiac imaging.
Olivia Ho Cheng, CEO of Aurora Imaging Technology Inc, North Andover, Massachusetts, was recently appointed to the international advisory board for the Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics (BC CBMP).
According to data¹ from the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS), the number of cosmetic procedures performed in the United States has spiked in the past decade; ASAPS estimates that injections of botulinum toxin A (BOTOX®, Allergan, Inc, Irvine, California) increased by over 3,000% between 1997 and 2003, while collagen injections increased by a more modest 79%.
In a niche notorious for its comparatively low reimbursement, every step along the care continuum must be patient focused…
To further its aim of extending subspecialty radiology services to community hospitals, Franklin & Seidelmann Subspecialty Radiology, Beachwood, Ohio, recently announced the creation of a new company called Radisphere National Radiology Group
Few developments in radiology have been more productive (or disruptive) than the advent of PACS. To PACS, radiology owes its ability to increase productivity dramatically during the past 10 years, thereby conserving income levels at a time of diminishing reimbursement.
When Jane Wheatley, CEO of Taylor Regional Hospital, Campbellsville, Kentucky, needed to make a decision regarding her facility’s handling of radiology services
When JAMA published an opinion piece1 in October 2009 questioning the effectiveness of mammography screening and calling for new screening protocols to separate life-threatening cancers from less harmful lesions, the mammography community reacted with alarm.
Teleradiology has reshaped the delivery of imaging services across the board, but it has had a particularly strong impact on around-the-clock coverage.
Pharmaceutical and device makers’ use of imaging for research is providing a new outlet for radiologists’ services.
Digital mammograms are now being delivered at more than 50% of the mammography sites in the nation.
Medicare has proposed a 19% overall reimbursement cut for radiation oncology
With quality and efficiency driving the trend toward vertically integrated cancer care, outpatient imaging providers must find new ways to integrate into the delivery model or risk being sidelined
A rising tide lifts all boats, as the saying goes, and thanks to the hastening deployment of subspecialty teleradiology, some of the smallest imaging-department boats are riding high.
Hospitals do not cede turf easily to competitors, even within the collegial environment of a multisite system. That, however, is precisely what had to happen before St. Luke’s Hospital and Health Network, Bethlehem, Pa, could centralize breast care among its four hospitals and six outpatient imaging sites in a regional diagnostic breast-imaging center.
Building a profitable breast imaging service entails deploying the right technology for a multimodality approach, effectively triaging high-risk women, and taking great overall care of the CEOs of family health
New applications made possible by improved transducer technology and system software are having an impact on radiologists’ practice patterns
Building a profitable breast imaging service entails deploying the right technology for a multimodality approach, effectively triaging high-risk women, and taking great overall care of the CEOs of family health
Frank Seidelmann, D.O., is cofounder and chair of Franklin and Seidelmann Subspecialty Radiology, Beachwood, Ohio.
The passage of the Mammography Quality Standards Act of 1992 (MQSA) ushered in a new era in breast imaging.
A compendium of the business intelligence required to launch a CCTA service
Teleradiology permeates the specialty as practices cross state, regional, and global boundaries to purchase and practice radiology
Turf questions have always surrounded the provision and interpretation of coronary CT angiography (CCTA) studies.
Adding a coronary CT angiography (CCTA) program to your emergency department can help save hundreds of thousands of dollars a year by reducing unnecessary admissions and mitigating the medicolegal expenses resulting from misdiagnoses.
Compression of images is not an alien concept in radiology.
A group of luminary practitioners of coronary CT angiography (CCTA) penned a white paper¹: to guide readers of CCTA in structured reporting for the modality.
Though expertise and reimbursement lag, many radiology practices gear up to perform their share of a potential 20 million procedures a year
Only a Web-based, thin-client system should be considered by teleradiology providers, according to J. Raymond Geis, MD. It is also vital, Geis says, to make all information available on the Web and to save all data in a searchable form.
An older medical oncology patient had undergone the paracentesis procedure once before at a hospital.
Though the population of women over 40 is on the rise, the number of mammography facilities fully certified in compliance with the provisions of the Mammography Quality Standards Act (MQSA) has declined slightly over the past five years.
Providing the full continuum of breast care earns the loyalty of the all-important female health care consumer, considerable downstream imaging, and the mammography annuity
Just five years ago, the thought of cardiac cross-sectional imaging turned immediately toward the potential of MRI for evaluation of the heart.
Pulmonary hypertension is a complex process affecting pulmonary and cardiac functions.
Primary care physicians are increasingly referring patients for coronary CT angiography (CCTA) to provide accurate diagnosis of coronary artery disease (CAD) and earlier disease management for their patients.
The advancement of imaging technology is invariably followed by a host of related challenges.
Radiographic mammography can be difficult to interpret, and radiologists who read mammograms rely on prior studies to guide them.
No one has played a greater role in transforming practice patterns in radiology than Paul S. Berger, MD.
In my 25 years of information technology management in four completely different industries (distribution, agricultural biotechnology, process manufacturing, and now health care).
The road to a distributed reading model is paved with WAN accelerators, DICOM gateways, and sleepless nights, to hear one practice CIO describe it.
Coronary CT angiography (CCTA) provides an accurate evaluation of coronary-artery disease and coronary-artery anomalies, and it gives us the ability to evaluate the cardiac chambers, myocardium, and valves.
UltraClinics, Inc, is a company prepared to offer same-day interpretation of breast-biopsy tissue and, if needed, teleoncology consultation for women undergoing breast-cancer screening.
Teleradiology has come a long way from its origins in the 1980s, when physicians would snap a photo of a film and transmit the image across telephone lines.
When Paul S. Viviano, joined Alliance Imaging in January of 2003, the company was almost exclusively a mobile MRI vendor.
As if radiologists were not facing sufficient challenges of late, they now are seeing increasing interest from cardiologists seeking to promote the sharing of certain studies.
In 2002, Norwalk Radiology—like many radiology practices across the nation—reached a crossroads.
One would think a metropolitan radiology practice that is 100% dependant on the outpatient market for all income would be at a competitive disadvantage in this post-DRA marketplace.
With its announcement that it would buy Cytyc, Marlborough, Mass, for $6.2 billion, Hologic Inc, Bedford, Mass, broadens its position in the women’s health care market and buys access to its gatekeeper.
New guidelines from the American Cancer Society [1] recommending annual breast MRI for high-risk women are expected to result in significantly expanded demand for the study.
March initiated what could be a sea change in the diagnosis of breast cancer in high-risk women, with results of a breast MR study published in the New England Journal of Medicine and, in the same week, new guidelines issued from the American Cancer Society (ACS) that recommended breast MR as a screening tool for high-risk women.
The past few weeks have witnessed some rather remarkable national press reports about this marvelous profession that is the broad field of diagnostic imaging.
There are several reasons to offer mammography in a freestanding imaging center, although profits are not usually one of them.