Negotiating higher reimbursement is nearly always possible, according to Penny Noyes, president and CEO, Health Business Navigators, Bowling Green, Ky. She presented Payor Contracts: Strategies to Analyze and Negotiate Improved Payor Reimbursement on October 21, 2008, in San Diego, at the annual conference of the Medical Group Management

Compression of images is not an alien concept in radiology. From radiography to CT, large image files transmitted between physicians’ offices or stored over the long term often undergo some kind of compression. Mammography—one of the last modalities to go digital—remains behind the curve, however. Can mammographic images be compressed while

The ACR is set to launch a new modular MRI accreditation program designed to meet the specific practice patterns of individual facilities. Sometime this month, the current general MRI accreditation program will transition to the new program—which includes brain, spine, musculoskeletal, body, MR angiography, and cardiac modules—opening the door to

At Palm Beach Radiology Institute, operated by Palm Beach Radiology and Imaging Associates (PBRIA), there is no film, there never has been film, and no one expects ever to see film. When the outpatient imaging center opened a year ago, it was already an all-digital environment, built from the ground up to accommodate a digital infrastructure and a

To say that the health care regulatory environment has been active over the past two years would be an understatement. The focus of this article is Medicare: the primary payor for health care services in this country and, often, the standard by which other payors establish their payment rules. Revisions to Medicare regulations often foretell what

The CMS Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) program has been made permanent and is expanding nationwide, beginning this year. Radiology providers should act now to adopt and implement appropriate compliance programs. Radiology providers should make efforts to understand the Medicare appeals process and should know that many strategies exist that can be

When John Mowry, digital imaging manager at Cook’s Children’s Health Care System, Fort Worth, Tex, decided to switch from his legacy PACS to a thin-client, Web-based model, he faced a particularly daunting migration situation. The servers in use by the legacy system were on their last legs; meanwhile, there were more than 10 million images across

Radiologists at Yale University figuratively equate their PACS with a toolbox and themselves with artisans, from whose hands now spring forth remarkably useful pictures: namely, manipulated and reconstructed digital images of what lies beneath the epidermis.