According to an article published in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), payors are clamoring to get the data on the four million people who federal regulators say have signed up so far for coverage in the health insurance exchanges (HIEs). Despite the prediction that a majority of the new patient population will be young and relatively healthy, payors suspect that details released so far aren’t enough to determine a full risk evaluation. New enrollees don’t have to disclose pre-existing conditions under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), and this may skew the risk assessment for payors. The young people who sign up may be those more likely to have serious medical needs, insurance-industry officials say. 

(February 21, 2014 – Toronto, Ontario, Canada) RamSoft, a leader in RIS, PACS and Teleradiology solutions, has partnered with Alpha Biomedical in Gurabo, Puerto Rico to distribute its complete line of fully customizable radiology workflow solution to their local market. RamSoft partners with organizations such as Alpha Biomedical and Diagnostic to provide sales and service support at the local level. 

RamSoft, a developer of RIS, PACS, and Teleradiology workflow solutions, adds Stockdale Radiology to its roster of clients. Founded by Drs. David Suadi and Gabriel Gelves, Stockdale Radiology is a brand new, state-of-the-art imaging center in Bakersfield, CA offering advanced imaging services to the Central Valley. They selected PowerServer RIS/PACS/MU to manage their workflow and to collect the data required for Meaningful Use Attestation.

Vendors Will Engage in Aggressive Price Competition to Win Public Tenders, According to Findings from Decision Resources Group BURLINGTON, Mass., Feb. 20, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Decision Resources Group finds that expansion of the European market for picture archiving and communication systems (PACS), radiology information systems (RIS) and cardiovascular information systems (CVIS) will be hindered by the debt crisis and radiology cuts in the region. The resulting budget constraints have led to deferred purchases of new and replacement PACS, RIS and CVIS for many countries in 2013, as well as the cancellation of a significant number of public tenders for these systems, particularly in the more severely affected markets in Italy and Spain.

A newly developed series of lectures, recently launched by the Patient Experience Advisory Team and sponsored by the Johns Hopkins Radiology Department, is bringing in non-medical experts to talk to hospital staff, according to a report by Johns Hopkins. The unique idea behind this series is that all of the speakers are “people experts”. From hotel executives to chefs, to the president of Disney Studios, these people offer expertise in making people happy. Elliot Fishman, a professor of radiology and oncology, planned the series of seven lectures in an attempt to get members of the Hopkins community thinking differently about patient care and patient engagement. 

With plenty of time before the March 31, deadline, California is reporting that it has already met its enrollment goals for the health insurance exchanges (HIEs). The California Department of Health Care Services announced that as of January 31, 3013, more than 1.6 million Californians have signed up for either Covered California health insurance plans, or for low cost or no cost Medi-Cal. The strong enrollment trend has extended into February with an additional 100,000 enrollments in Covered California in the first two weeks of this month.

In a recent Journal of the American College of Radiology: JACR article, 1 Richard Heller III, MD, MBA, a radiologist with Radiology Partners and chairman of radiology at Advocate Children’s Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, proposed a framework for understanding radiology-group value (based on specific health-system needs). He calls it the total value equation. 

As radiology groups continue to contemplate the transition from fee-for-service to value-based medicine, the question of what constitutes value is central to their plans for the future—and unearthing the answer begins with understanding the needs of hospitals and health systems in evolution, according to Geraldine McGinty, MD, MBA, chair of the ACR® Commission on Economics.