Facility Management

There's an alternative to radiology benefit managers that can cut down on labor hours, save money, and ensure patients receive the right imaging test the first time

Experts continue to lambast recent recommendations from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force to cut breast cancer screening from annual to biennial exams and to limit the test to women ages 50 to 74. The experts are primarily concerned with the task force’s ability to influence policy, and thus they continue to assert there are no data to support the recommendations.

Some have blamed in-office self-referral for imaging’s fall from grace, alleging that overprescription of imaging exams for personal gain and the low-quality images that often result have tarnished the specialty’s reputation. Now relief may come from an unlikely quarter: healthcare reform.

Bracco Diagnostics sees opportunity in the latest decision by the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services to reimburse more for PET procedures in 2010.

Rather than retreating after the hard blow handed them by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which refused to grant reimbursement for the application in May, CT colonography researchers will arrive at the 2009 RSNA meeting with more of what CMS wants: hard data.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has issued a recommendation against routine breast cancer screening for women ages 40 to 49 and suggests the screening interval should be changed from every year to every two years beginning at age 50. The new recommendations will result in “many needless deaths,” said a joint statement from the American College of Radiology and the Society of Breast Imaging

Medical imagers can now expect Medicare to routinely cover FDG-PET for initial staging of cervical cancer, thanks to a national coverage ruling announced Nov. 10.

In 1999, when the National Academy of Engineering asked professional engineering societies to rank the top achievements of the 20th century, they ranked medical imaging techniques at number 14, one rung below the Internet and one above household appliances. A decade later the providers of imaging services and the companies that sell this equipment are scapegoats targeted for rate cutting and taxation. What happened?

A radiologist, well known for research on diagnostic imaging utilization trends, has pointed to the growing prominence of radiology benefit management companies for slamming the brakes on rapidly growing high-tech imaging utilization.

With years of slice wars behind them, vendors will argue that image quality and dose reduction are this year’s dominant issues in CT. Most of their arguments will be rooted in past developments.

Passing of the Affordable Health Care for America Act in the House of Representatives confirmed imaging proponents’ fears that the bill would impose steep cuts to Medicare reimbursement rates and new sale taxes on imaging equipment. But they were pleased to discover that, for the first time, the House has turned its gaze on physician self-referral.

Electrocardiogram-gated tube modulation is essential to lower radiation dose in fusion imaging.

The American College of Radiology is predicting that imaging access will plunge and patient waiting times will soar from new Medicare Physician Fee Schedule rules that will cut Medicare payments for outpatient imaging by an estimated 16% next year.

Cuts built into the 2010 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule will imperil community-based imaging facilities, ultimately restricting availability of advanced imaging techniques to large hospitals, according to American College of Radiology.

With radiologists already working at record productivity levels, there is not much room left to maintain income levels by working harder.

When Regions Hospital got serious about automating its patient record, administrators there decided that PACS would have to be part of it.

These are hard times for magazines, especially ones that devote themselves to medical practice.

The risks for individual imaging services are low, but radiologists should not be surprised by a visit from a representative of Medicare’s inspector general’s office to investigate the medical necessity of emergency room scans or their imaging center billing patterns.

This month Diagnostic Imaging celebrates its 30th anniversary.

Healthcare reform legislation from the House of Representatives, announced Thursday by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is ready to go to members for discussion and a vote. The bill would cut Medicare payment rates for advanced imaging while establishing a 2.5% surcharge on the purchase price of new imaging equipment.

A coalition representing imaging manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, and professional societies fears a corporate tax embedded in the Senate healthcare reform bill could stifle product innovation, though the exact financial impact of the proposed surcharge is hard to gauge.

The possibility that radiologists will score a major victory in healthcare reform legislation grew stronger this week with the endorsement of a proposal to link physicians’ pay to the use of appropriateness criteria in the ordering of imaging studies. The last-minute addition to the Senate Finance Committee reform bill was approved by the panel Oct. 13 and will be debated with the rest of the reform bill on the Senate floor, mostly likely next week.

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the prestigious Los Angeles healthcare institution known as the hospital to the Hollywood stars, has been jolted by an FDA alert indicating that perfusion CT performed during an 18-month period exposed more than 200 stroke patients to eight times the normal dose of ionizing radiation for the procedures.

Earlier this decade, when NightHawk Radiology Services and Virtual Radiologic became publicly traded corporations, it looked like the die had been cast for the future of radiology. Venture capitalists were prowling the RSNA exhibit floor looking for the next hot teleradiology company to fund and take public. There was widespread talk that the next step would be final day reads rendered from large and remote teleradiology operations.

A proposal that could allow higher payments for physicians who refer patients in accordance with appropriateness criteria has been added to a healthcare reform bill now before the Senate Finance Committee.

Teleradiology's aggressive move into day read business gives hospitaladministrators a 'nuclear option' against defiant hospital-based radiologists

A proposal to increase the assumed equipment utilization rate, combined with other payment reductions, could result in 2010 rate cuts for imaging centers greater than those imposed by the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, a new analysis concludes.

Other headlinesPET radiotracer developers expand suppo

Comprehensive healthcare reform legislation rolled out by the Senate Finance Committee this week moved the debate closer to what radiologists and image service operators would consider a reasonable formula for the regulation of reimbursement and clinical practices.

When economic hard times hit, the instinct of most companies is to take shelter, reduce spending, and wait for good times to return.