These are hard times for magazines, especially ones that devote themselves to medical practice.
The industry has experienced a historic shift from print to web-based communications just as many of the companies that have traditionally supported Diagnostic Imaging have reduced their advertising because of the current imaging equipment sales recession. The slowdown stems from lower federal reimbursement rates due to the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, the financial crisis of 2008, and the uncertainties of the healthcare reform debate of 2009.
It's a hell of a time to celebrate our 30th birthday. But if our past can be taken as prologue, then many lessons about past downturns and recoveries can be found in the 360 issues that document our 30-year history. Slumps have happened before. Diagnostic Imaging was also awfully thin in the healthcare reform year of 1993. Display advertising sales dropped by half that year, while pundits claimed that radiology would never be the same.
Fast-forward to 1997 and our financial fortunes have fully recovered in a record year for imaging equipment sales. Rather than losing one-quarter of their income as predicted, radiologists would see their average compensation more than double by 2005.
Stark differences can also be seen in Diagnostic Imaging's coverage of healthcare reform in 1993 and 2009. Sixteen years ago, we sat back passively and let reform unfold and then unravel on its own before considering in our pages what it all meant for radiology. This time Diagnostic Imaging has a Washington-based editor and a daily news portal at www.diagnosticimaging.com to follow the movement of legislation through the House and Senate. Our coverage is far superior to what it was 16 years ago.
And the radiological practices and imaging modalities that have served as the focus of our coverage for three decades are also improved. The American College of Radiology's Congressional lobbying efforts have been broadened and strengthened to deal with the unremitting challenge of legislative threats since DRA passage, according to Dr. James Thrall, chair of the ACR board of chancellors.
