The ever changing landscape of outpatient diagnostic imaging is compelling operators to have a keen understanding of market conditions in order to appropriately assess the potential return on investment on capital investments to upgrade or replace major imaging equipment. 

What do we really know? As former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld once said: “We know there are known knowns; there are things we know we know.

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, there is a significant segment of high risk individuals with pre-existing medical conditions currently enrolled in a federal health insurance program that is slated to close on March 31, 2014. This federal program was created shortly after the 2010 health law was passed to offer assistance to those people who couldn’t get coverage from commercial insurers because of their pre-existing medical conditions. There was $5 billion in funding set aside to cover this group’s medical claims through December 31, 2013. 

According to an article published in NewsDay, Federal agents raided the corporate headquarters of Zwanger-Pesiri Radiology in Lindenhurst on Tuesday, March 11, seizing the records of the business that operates 12 medical offices on Long Island, NY. 

CMS reported on March 11, 2014, that enrollments in the national health insurance exchanges (HIEs) have reached 4.2 million individuals, with 20 days until the enrollment deadline. While this number is not close to the originally targeted 6 million enrollees, the administration is touting this as a successful achievement. The CMS numbers have already been analyzed and interpreted from many different angles. 

Coalition Urges Administration to Follow Congress’ Lead by Adopting Appropriate Use CriteriaWashington, D.C. – The Access to Medical Imaging Coalition (AMIC) today expressed concern that President Obama’s 2015 budget would harm patient access to advanced medical imaging technologies by implementing prior authorization requirements through radiology benefit managers (RBMs).

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), the Obama administration plans to make an announcement as early as next week to continue to let insurers sell policies that don’t comply with the new federal health law for at least 12 more months. This would be the second such delay, and some believe the effort is being made to avert another wave of policy cancelations and negative press for the administration. 

On October 1, 2014, healthcare practices will be required to use a revised version of the International Classification of Diseases code: ICD-10.