Demand for radiologists acting as medical directors could jump if a proposed regulation now under consideration by CMS is adopted. The proposed rule would require all nonhospital providers of imaging services to meet Medicare’s existing requirements for IDTFs, which specify that there must be a qualified physician designated to supervise care and

CT has become indispensable tool for physicians to use in diagnosing and managing a vast array of medical conditions. The use of CT to aid triage of patients in emergency departments is now routine. Most patients with cancer are diagnosed and monitored by CT. Even many benign diseases are best diagnosed and monitored using CT. In short, referring

The health care industry will be facing significant changes in the future, and a medical practice’s success is becoming increasingly linked to its revenue cycle. Reduced reimbursement from payors, along with changes in third-party reimbursement, has significantly affected how medical practices need to deal with the revenue cycle for their practices

The team at OGH Imaging LLC, Grand Coteau, La, faces a daunting task every day: living up to the expectations of both OGH’s hospital and physician investors while managing approximately 70 patient studies a day across eight modalities (MRI, 16-slice CT, ultrasound, DR, digital mammography, fluoroscopy, bone densitometry, and calcium scoring).

Preparation is the difference between unexpected PACS downtime and a nightmare, Michael D. Toland told his audience in Seattle on May 17 at the 2008 annual meeting of the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine. Toland, who is PACS administrative team manager for the University of Maryland Medical System, Baltimore, presented PACS Worst Case

PACS data migration is so important that every PACS acquisition should include a plan for outbound migration at the end of that system’s life, according to Frederick M. Behlen, PhD. Behlen is an officer, director, and shareholder of LAITEK Inc, also known as Migratek™ Data Migration Services, Homewood, Ill. He serves as cochair of the DICOM–HL7

At Palm Beach Radiology Institute, operated by Palm Beach Radiology and Imaging Associates (PBRIA), there is no film, there never has been film, and no one expects ever to see film. When the outpatient imaging center opened a year ago, it was already an all-digital environment, built from the ground up to accommodate a digital infrastructure and a

It’s easy to let quality assurance (QA) slip into a lip-service category, but that is something that a nighttime stat-reading teleradiology service can’t afford to do—particularly if it is an industry leader like NightHawk Radiology Services. Dionne Watts, quality-assurance supervisor, says “QA for teleradiology is important because the client