Among the 11 ideas for bending the cost curve in health care offered in the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine are several that directly concern medical imaging providers -- most notably the proposal to institute competitive bidding for all “commodities” and create price transparency for consumers.

A Florida judge has denied hospital operator Adventist Health System’s motion to dismiss a 2010 whistle-blower case filed against it by a radiologist and a billing coding and reimbursement compliance officer. The suit alleges that Adventist Health routinely billed government payors for computer aided detection that was never performed and for a

RadNet, Inc. and Barnabas Health announced the operational commencement of their joint venture in New Jersey with the sale of RadNet’s West Orange, NJ, imaging center to Barnabas Health and the establishment of the joint venture’s first owned facility in Cedar Knolls, NJ.

Consulting Radiologists, Ltd. has hired Karen Flanagan Kleinhans, MHA, as Chief of Strategy and Business Development. She will be responsible for CRL’s overall strategic direction, business development and marketing plans, the company says.

As pressure mounts to control health care costs, the American College of Radiology is taking action to accumulate real data on the impact of medical imaging on health care quality, delivery and cost. Today it announced that it is establishing the Harvey L. Neiman Health Policy Institute (HPI) to “examine the role of radiology in new health care

Mark H. Wholey, MD, a leading interventional radiologist, formerly of UPMC, is moving to Allegheny General Hospital, a West Penn Allegheny Health System hospital whose long-time rivalry with UPMC turned into a legal battle last year when insurer Highmark announced plans to merge with West Penn Allegheny.

Accretive Health, a medical debt collection company, has agreed to pay $2.5 million to the Minnesota state attorney general’s office to settle charges that it had pressured patients to pay for care prior to its delivery, according to the New York Times.

FUJIFILM Medical Systems U.S.A., Inc. announced the latest addition to its family of DR products, the FDR D-EVO Suite II. It is a cost effective, flexible, DR room solution designed to optimize workflow while utilizing any of Fujifilm’s popular FDR D-EVO portable detectors.