The draft bill to permanently repeal the now 15-year-old Medicare sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula was approved by a voice vote by the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee and will now be considered by the full Committee

The proposed 2014 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule1 (MPFS) and Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System2 (HOPPS) rules have both been released, and the outlook for radiology is dim, according to Cynthia Moran, assistant executive director for government relations and economics at the ACR®. “The only good news—if you can call it that—is that CMS no longer appears to be targeting only radiology,” Moran says. “It used to be that it was seeking to take from the specialties and give back to primary care, but now, it’s not even doing that. It’s just lowering how much money is spent as much as it can.”

Radiology-practice consolidation has become more than just a trend: It’s an imperative for future survival, according to Michael Brant-Zawadzki, MD, Ron and Sandi Simon endowed executive medical director chair at the Hoag Neurosciences Institute (Newport Beach, California). “Scale is becoming much more important,” he notes. “Smaller groups are looking for help and are being overtaken by corporate entities like national teleradiology groups—or by larger, independent group practices. Under that model, they can distribute subspecialty services more efficiently and can realize economies of scale.”

Big data, as a term, means different things to different industries and professionals, but loosely defined, it refers to the explosion of information flowing into and out of businesses—including medical practices—over the past few years. Of the world’s data, 90% were created in the past two years alone; IBM estimates that 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are generated every day.

Governor Pat McCrory has HB 467, the Breast Density Notification & Awareness bill, into law making North Carolina the 12th state requiring mammography providers to inform patients about their breast density. It also makes a correction to a statute involving the cancer registry

The American Society of Radiologic Technologists (ASRT) Wage and Salary Survey indicates that the average salaries of radiologic technologists rose by 1.7 percent in the past three years and now average $62,763

Texas Radiology Associates LLP, of Plano will be able to better serve more patients starting next year thanks to its new contract with health insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas

Samsung Electronics America Inc. has appointed Doug Ryan, the former vice president of marketing and strategic development at Toshiba America Medical Systems, as its Group Vice President for Health and Medical Equipment