High-Cost Imaging Follow-Ups? Don’t Blame the Radiologist
Radiologists order just 5.3 percent of high-cost imaging examinations, according to a study published online on Nov. 14 in the journal Radiology.
Radiologists order just 5.3 percent of high-cost imaging examinations, according to a study published online this week in the journal Radiology.
Susanna I. Lee, MD, PhD, of Massachusetts General Hospital, and colleagues sought to quantify the source of high-cost scans and understand what sort of examinations these scans involved. They considered chest and abdominal CT, brain and lumbar spine magnetic resonance imaging, and body positron emission tomography from a database of all radiology examinations (approximately 200,000) at Mass General over a six-month period.
Just 1,558 of 29,232 (5.3 percent) of high-cost examinations followed a radiologist’s recommendation, Lee and colleagues found. Chest CT was the high-cost examination most often resulting from a radiologist’s recommendation (9.4 percent), followed by abdominal CT (3.8 percent) and brain MR imaging (3.4 percent).
The examination types with the highest numbers of follow-up examinations were chest radiography, chest CT, abdominal CT, and abdominal ultrasonography. The most common findings resulting in follow-up were pulmonary nodules or masses (found in 35.9 percent of recommended high-cost examinations), other pulmonary abnormalities (9.6 percent), enlarged lymph nodes (6.6 percent), renal lesions (6.5 percent), and negative examination findings (6.5 percent).
Could AI-Powered Abbreviated MRI Reinvent Detection for Structural Abnormalities of the Knee?
April 24th 2025Employing deep learning image reconstruction, parallel imaging and multi-slice acceleration in a sub-five-minute 3T knee MRI, researchers noted 100 percent sensitivity and 99 percent specificity for anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears.
The Reading Room: Artificial Intelligence: What RSNA 2020 Offered, and What 2021 Could Bring
December 5th 2020Nina Kottler, M.D., chief medical officer of AI at Radiology Partners, discusses, during RSNA 2020, what new developments the annual meeting provided about these technologies, sessions to access, and what to expect in the coming year.
New Collaboration Offers Promise of Automating Prior Authorizations in Radiology with AI
March 26th 2025In addition to a variety of tools to promote radiology workflow efficiencies, the integration of the Gravity AI tools into the PowerServer RIS platform may reduce time-consuming prior authorizations to minutes for completion.
Strategies to Reduce Disparities in Interventional Radiology Care
March 19th 2025In order to help address the geographic, racial, and socioeconomic barriers that limit patient access to interventional radiology (IR) care, these authors recommend a variety of measures ranging from increased patient and physician awareness of IR to mobile IR clinics and improved understanding of social determinants of health.
