The National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA), whose members include manufacturers of medical imaging equipment, announced Philip Squair as its new vice president of government relations. He will lead the association’s advocacy and lobbying efforts, according to Sept. 6 release from NEMA.

In the middle of a national opioid epidemic, one major health insurance provider has decided it will no longer cover OxyContin prescriptions next year.

Two new studies underscore that Medicare’s bundled payment for care improvement (BPCI) programs are helping provide better quality care to patients.

Bruce J. Tromberg, PhD, has been selected as the director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), one of the 27 agencies that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Tromberg will oversee a 230-person staff and a portfolio of 800 grants dedicated to imaging and technologies to improve the detection, treatment and prevention of disease.

Can medical marijuana truly help patients suffering from chronic nerve pain? Researchers have used brain imaging to show that tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), a chemical compound found in marijuana, reduces connectivity in parts of the brain involved in processing pain, sharing their findings in a new study published in Neurology.

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) and Desert Radiology, a nearby diagnostic imaging facility, have signed an agreement to provide imaging analysis services to study participants in university research.

On the American College of Radiology’s Voice of Radiology blog, Melissa Chen, MD, announced plans to build on last year’s survey of patient attitudes toward imaging. ACR will begin to develop a new survey to help define exactly what patients value when interacting with medical imaging professionals.

When using the American College of Radiology’s Breast Imaging-Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS) to classify a breast lesion, radiologists are expected to only use the category 5 assessment when the likelihood of malignancy, or positive predictive value (PPV), is at least 95 percent. Is that a feasible expectation?