Hospitals are rich and poised to get richer while independent physicians and groups continue to take it on the chin, facing ever more onerous pressures to consolidate under the headship of large hospitals, health systems or for-profit practice management companies.

“Without a clear reference standard technique that optimizes patient outcomes, device selection is based on availability and physician-driven selection, which can substantially impact procedural costs,” authors of a new cost analysis in Clinical Radiology stated.

The new guidance, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, covers a variety of topics, including thoracic aortic disease, peripheral artery disease, shared decision-making and cardiac imaging.

A three-site imaging operation in Hawaii has been turning away patients since Oct. 20 due to what its management initially described as unspecified “technical difficulties.”

The American College of Radiology is offering an initial appraisal of the rates CMS will pay next year for outpatient radiology and radiation oncology services through the Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System.

Experts are calling for strategies to improve follow-up adherence among individuals who have positive lung cancer screenings after a new analysis revealed low rates of compliance. 

New research out of Mayo Clinic found that clinicians who listened to AI-based treatment recommendations were more successful at identifying patients with low ejection fraction. 

A leading U.K. radiologist tells what he saw as this challenging scenario snowballed into being and what he believes must be done to make matters more manageable.