The debate over the future of healthcare in the U.S. is really a discussion about inequity, according to America’s Essential Hospitals president and CEO Bruce Siegel, MD, MPH, saying disparities will still need to be addressed even if the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid expansion remain in place.

Discussions to create the largest hospital system in the country by combining Ascension and Providence St. Joseph Health have ended, with the two companies deciding to focus on restructuring existing operations, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Mergers and acquisitions that have consolidated healthcare markets in California have raised prices for procedures and insurance premiums, especially in the northern part of the state, according to a report from the University of California, Berkeley’s Petris Center on Health Care Markets and Consumer Welfare.

Radiology Partners announced Wednesday, March 28, that it has entered into a new partnership with Access Radiology, the largest radiology practice in Louisiana.

High-dose radiotherapy doesn’t improve survival in men with intermediate-risk prostate cancer, but it can improve biochemical control and rates of tumor metastasis, researchers reported of the first large-scale study to examine whether hiked radiation doses are linked to improved survival.

The majority of chest, abdominal and pelvic CTs are scanned off-center—a phenomenon that could impact both dose and image quality, a group of Atlanta researchers reported this month in Current Problems in Diagnostic Radiology.

Six years ago, the non-invasive cardiovascular lab (NICL) at 540-bed St. Dominic Hospital in Jackson, Mississippi, faced something of an uncertain future. The rules for maintaining accreditation, set by intersocietal accreditation commissions, require that all vascular exams get interpreted within 48 hours of image acquisition. For cardiac exams, the read must wait no longer than 24 hours.

The cost of healthcare, especially advanced imaging studies, has been under scrutiny for several years now, leading to countless discussions about what is and is not essential to patient care. In a new commentary published by Academic Radiology, the author argues that image reinterpretation by a subspecialist radiologist can provide significant value and should not be viewed as wasteful or unnecessary.