While it remains strongly in favor of serious, properly designed proposals to eliminate the sustainable growth rate (SGR), the American College of Radiology (ACR) has issued a statement is expressing strong opposition to Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) recommendations pertaining to such a move.

Health care claims information—representing more than $1 trillion in treatment and services rendered over the past 11 years—will be submitted by four major health plans and Medicare to the newly formed Health Care Cost Institute for researcher analysis of the primary drivers of costs and utilization.

Appropriateness criteria developed in 2009 by the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (ASNC) perform “fairly well” for certain indications, reducing the number of inappropriate imaging exams, reveals a study presented at ASNC's annual meeting in Denver, Colorado last week.

When Leo Reina, president and CEO of Reina Imaging (Chicago, Illinois), a radiography repair and manufacturing company, first entered the business 32 years ago, long-bone imaging was still largely the purview of chiropractors and orthopedists. “Chiropractors would do it looking for curvature of the spine,” he recalls, “and as prosthetics became

Exactly what portion of the hospital bottom line comes from imaging? It’s a straightforward question, but even hospital executives occasionally grope for an answer.

This article is third in a four-part series about health-care reform’s impact on radiology. To read the first article in the series, click here; to read the second, click here.

The Joint Commission’s 2011–2012 standards will bring changes for hospital radiology departments, according to Judith M. Atkins, RN, MSN, president and CEO of McKenna Consulting in Charleston, West Virginia, and Robert A. Wise, MD, medical advisor to the Joint Commission’s Division of Healthcare Quality Evaluation. Atkins outlined some of these

In 2006, Tenet Healthcare Corp of Dallas, Texas, was operating 20 outpatient imaging centers across the country, and it was watching its outpatient imaging volume continue to slide. Dale Skrnich, senior director of outpatient services for the organization, explains that many of the imaging centers were being operated as hospital departments; “They