Management

This page includes content on healthcare management, including health system, hospital, department and clinic business management and administration. Areas of focus are on cardiology and radiology department business administration. Subcategories covered in this section include healthcare economics, reimbursement, leadership, mergers and acquisitions, policy and regulations, practice management, quality, staffing, and supply chain.

Strategic Positioning for Optimal Patient Care: Imaging Healthcare Specialists

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Imaging Healthcare Specialists (“IHS”), a 30-radiologist practice based in San Diego, California, has a simple ethos driving its business decisions. “We view ourselves, first and foremost, as a medical practice,” Thomas Cleary, president and COO of Imaging Healthcare Specialists, explains. “Every day, every employee who works for us—from the person who schedules the patient, to the technologist who provides the exam, and from the radiologist delivering the report to the IT person—is making an impact on patients’ lives.”

More Than Money

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The most common misconception regarding medical-practice reimbursement is that it’s about nothing more than money. In fact, reimbursement is about much more than the dollar numbers associated with CPT® codes in payors’ various fee schedules, and any discussion of it that doesn’t also touch on process, strategy, and service is incomplete.

Debate Over Debt Ceiling Deal Brings Up Repeal of Device Tax

In a debate on H.J. Res. 59, the Continuing Resolution, that would raise the U.S. debt ceiling, Senators John McCain (R-Ariz) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) urged their colleagues to consider an amendment to repeal the 2.3 percent Medical Device Tax

Republican Senators Ask HHS to Extend Meaningful Use Stage 2 Deadline

Seventeen senators have written to U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to ask her to delay penalties on providers who will not be ready to meet Stage 2 requirements of the Electronic Health Records (EHR) incentive program by next year

vRad Expands Patent Suit Against Competitors

Lawyers for Minneapolis-based Virtual Radiologic (vRad) have amended the company’s patent-infringement complaint against Tandem Radiology, Direct Radiology and Imaging Advantage to also include an additional recent patent

Senate Passes Helium Reserve Bill

The 97 to 2 roll call vote in favor of the bi-partisan bill (H.R. 527) virtually guarantees the U.S. Helium Reserve will stay open past the October 7 deadline to close it

Researchers, Industry, Radiologists Urge Helium Bill Passage

With the Oct. 7 deadline to close the Federal Helium Reserve looming, more than 100 academic institutions, manufacturers, physician organizations and other stakeholders signed a joint letter to Congress to change the law and allow the reserve to stay open until private helium suppliers are ready to take over

SGR Repeal May Cost $175.5 Billion Over 10 Years

According to the latest Congressional Budget Office (CBO) cost estimate, passing H.R. 2810: The Medicare Patient Access and Quality Improvement Act of 2013 as it currently stands will actually be 23 percent more expensive than the previous estimate for repealing the sustainable growth rate formula