Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley has signed SB 334, the “Mammograms – Dense Breast Tissue – Notification” into law making his state the seventh state requiring mammography providers to give patients information about breast density

Ten years after selling AnciCare, a network of 1,200 imaging centers in 40 states, Michael Cabrera is again putting up his own money for a new venture. According to a feature in the Miami Herald, the Florida-based entrepreneur will this time focus on the Sunshine State’s workers-compensation market.

Whether the slowdown in health care spending is just a silver lining to the overall slowdown in the economy or if it is due to structural changes in how health care is delivered is no small matter

Senator David Vitter (R-La.) received the American College of Radiology's Congressional Award for Radiological Excellence (CARE Award) for his championship of radiology issues in the Senate

Twelve Representatives and three Senators added their names to legislation to remove the multiple procedure payment reduction (MPPR) on the professional component of imaging

The radiology industry has seen its shares of ups and downs during the past two decades. “In 1993, health care was in a period of chaos much like the one we are experiencing right now,” Mark Talley, COO of Medical Management Professionals (MMP), says. “The biggest fear was that everything would move to capitation. As time went by and things settled down, there was a period of rapid growth in radiology, primarily driven by advances in imaging technology.” G. Darrell Hulsey, president and CEO of MMP, concurs. He says, “Clinically, radiology has made significant advances in the past two decades, all contributing to better and more streamlined care.”

Contracts between hospitals and radiology groups are evolving to reflect the shifting requirements of health care—and both parties can expect to continue to see changes, according to Stephanie Krent, an analyst with The Advisory Board. “What we have learned, from speaking with many hospitals and radiology groups, is that contracts need to be individualized to fit the relationship and to reflect current priorities,” Krent says. “It has to be a fluid process, with the contract continually updated to reflect how needs are changing and risk is shifting.”

Patient satisfaction is often misunderstood by health-care providers, according to William R. Johnson, CRA, MBA, RT, system director of patient experience with Memorial Health System (Springfield, Illinois). In Los Angeles, California, on April 10, at the 2013 spring meeting of AHRA: The Association for Medical Imaging Management, he presented “Patient Satisfaction: What It Isn’t, What It Is, and How to Do It Better.” He says, “It’s all about the patients’ experience of how they were treated as human beings. It’s about their perceptions of the caring they received during their clinical journeys.”