The very nature of many radiology groups’ governance structures—highly democratic, split among multiple partners, and with each partner’s vote given equal weight—creates an unfortunate tendency toward emotional decision making. As the inside joke goes, in a radiology practice, you call 99 votes versus one vote a tie. Decision making can easily be

In April, Medscape released results from its annual physician survey¹ on salary, job satisfaction, and more; among the most controversial of these results was the revelation that only 54% of those surveyed said that they would choose medicine again as a career. Stephen Pomeranz, MD, founder and CEO of ProScan Imaging (Cincinnati, Ohio), connects

Summa Health System (Akron, Ohio), one of the largest health-care networks in the state, was facing a difficulty common to organizations that provide imaging for bariatric patients: the 0.3T open MRI system at its Summa Health Center at White Pond, to which many of these patients had to be referred, was too low in field strength for certain types

It’s more than a truism to discuss mobile computing as the next horizon in the delivery of health care. Today, the achievements of such systems are measured in degrees of eventuality, rather than possibility; their potentials are gauged in whens, not ifs.

In 2007, CMS implemented a new program aimed at eliminating fraud and abuse: the use of Medicare recovery audit contractors (RACs). Under the RAC program, independent contractors look for improper Medicare payments in exchange for a percentage of the overpaid or underpaid dollars discovered, resulting in a high level of scrutiny for Medicare

Over the past few years, hospitals have been acquiring imaging centers at a brisk pace. Hospital and imaging-center transactions require an independent opinion on fair market value to ensure regulatory compliance; a thorough fair-market analysis will incorporate macroeconomic industry trends, along with the facts and circumstances specific to the

Interventional-radiology departments are facing increasing demands to justify costs, measure outcomes, and prove value in a competitive clinical environment. Though they are often managed alongside their diagnostic-radiology counterparts, the reality is that interventional-radiology departments have more in common with cardiac catheterization,

In reviewing a schematic diagram of the integration points of the imaging information systems of Kaiser Northern California (Oakland), Richard (Skip) Kennedy, MS, bewails the current state of point-to-point integration in health care. Not only is this approach inefficient, time intensive, and wildly expensive, it’s not working very well.