Health care is healthy. The U.S. health care workforce continued to grow faster than any other economic sector last month, even as the unemployment rate held steady at 9.1%, reveals new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Two key imaging groups--The Medical Imaging & Technology Alliance (MITA) and The Access to Medical Imaging Coalition (AMIC)—are prevailing upon Congress to reject the proposal by the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA) that Medicare use prior authorization for advanced imaging services.

California's Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) today announced the launch of the first phase of its Medi-Cal Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Program. Part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the program will deliver to eligible hospitals and health care professionals as much as $1.4 billion in federal incentive payments

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted clearance to GE Healthcare for its Discovery MR750w wide-bore 3-tesla system with the GEM Suite (geometry embracing method) of coils.

In what could be the first step toward breaking a pattern of annual short-term fixes to the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula that governs Medicare payments, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) today voted to approve a proposal to repeal it.

Consumers’ confidence in their ability to access and pay for health care services rose slightly last month, but concerns remain, according to the Thomson Reuters Consumer Healthcare Sentiment Index.

Unnecessary tests and treatments cost the U.S. health care system $6.7 billion in 2009, but expenditures for unnecessary imaging dwarfed those for other procedures, according to a research letter published in the October 1 edition of Archives of Internal Medicine.

Cindy Moran, a former Republican Senate staffer who now lobbies for the American College of Radiology (ACR), doesn't mince words when it comes to the prospect of the Congressional supercommittee recommending using health care cuts to reduce the nation's budget deficit by at least $1.2 trillion in the next 10 years.