An October 26 commentary in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Big Insurance, Big Medicine” was prescient in its evaluation of the impact on the health-care profession—the business of medicine—of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. I say prescient because the predicted impact happens to parallel the transformation of the business side of

Four community hospitals, each located in a non-metropolitan area, sought to improve their radiology service. Each began to see improvements within about six months, and the gains were accomplished, for the most part, without adding new or better modalities.

The decision to outsource billing is one faced with increasing regularity by radiology groups seeking to trim costs while maximizing reimbursement. Within this larger decision also lies another conundrum: how to select the outsourced-billing approach that best suits the practice. Kevin Shepherd is chief development officer for Medical Management

In today’s business environment, it is critical for health care organizations and their leaders to demonstrate a thorough understanding of their respective markets’ dynamics, needs and demands—and to make decisions accordingly, said Donna Wade in the “Know Your Market to Grow Your Market” session held on August 24 at the annual meeting of the AHRA:

Sunshine Radiology was facing a quandary familiar to many radiology groups. The busy 25-radiologist practice (based in Sebring, Florida) wanted to expand its hospital business, but knew that it needed to lower its costs in order to do so. “We needed to keep our radiologists as efficient as possible, and there wasn’t always enough volume to support

Growing business while staying ahead of the competition is a focal point for most organizations, particularly in the competitive and high-stakes health care market. Maintaining and striving to further enhance the delivery of high customer satisfaction are also vital to long-term success. In August, FUJIFILM Medical Systems USA, Inc., Stamford,

CMS plans to implement a two-year Medicare Imaging Demonstration Project [PDF] that will test whether decision-support systems can promote the appropriate ordering of imaging services using criteria established in current medical-specialty guidelines. The project will focus on MRI, CT, and nuclear-medicine diagnostic-imaging services. The 11

CMS released the 2011 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) in July, proposing myriad changes that CMS notes would result in a 6% payment cut for radiology services. That reduction doesn’t include the impact of the 23% cut that will take place on December 1, when this year’s temporary 2.2% payment update expires—or the additional 6.1% cut