Manufacturers and users of low-field MRI scanners will probablydodge a bullet this month that could have been fatal for low-fieldreimbursement in California's workers' compensation system. Membersof a medical council participating in reform of the system
Manufacturers and users of low-field MRI scanners will probablydodge a bullet this month that could have been fatal for low-fieldreimbursement in California's workers' compensation system. Membersof a medical council participating in reform of the system areon the verge of abandoning a proposal to deny reimbursement forscans done on low-field systems.
The proposal to refuse low-field coverage was proffered asa means of reducing workers' comp costs. The system paid an estimated$266 million to radiologists last year (SCAN 10/21/92). MRI scansconstitute one of the fastest growing cost segments within radiology.
Low-field MRI has been singled out for attention because insurancecompanies participating in the system claimed that a disproportionatenumber of low-field scans must be repeated due to poor image quality.
Last year, members of the Industrial Medical Council (IMC),a group of physicians formed to make recommendations on workers'comp coverage, floated a trial balloon proposing that the systemno longer reimburse for low-field MRI scans.
Fortunately for low-field vendors and users, however, thatproposal has been withdrawn. Instead, the IMC will probably recommendthat the workers' comp system deny reimbursement for scans thatare not of acceptable quality. The interpreting radiologist willdetermine whether or not scans are acceptable, according to Dr.Michael M. Bronshvag, the IMC member who is conducting the reviewof low-field MRI reimbursement.
"The responsibility of the IMC is to worry about the patient,not the magnet," Bronshvag told SCAN. "We will probablycome out with different guidelines based on quality assurancefor the patient and let the radiologists and everybody else worryabout the magnet."
Bronshvag will make his recommendation on MRI coverage to afull meeting of the IMC in Los Angeles Feb. 18. The IMC will inturn make its own recommendations to the judges who set workers'comp rates. Those rates will be included in the revised workers'comp fee schedule to be published sometime this year.
The IMC meeting is public and will be held at 10 a.m. at theHoliday Inn Crown Plaza Hotel at the Los Angeles InternationalAirport, 5985 W. Century Blvd.
A Victory for Radiology: New CMS Proposal Would Provide Coverage of CT Colonography in 2025
July 12th 2024In newly issued proposals addressing changes to coverage for Medicare services in 2025, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced its intent to provide coverage of computed tomography colonography (CTC) for Medicare beneficiaries in 2025.
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.
ACR Collaborative Model Leads to 35 Percent Improvement with Mammography Positioning Criteria
July 1st 2024Noting significant variation with facilities for achieving passing criteria for mammography positioning, researchers found that structured interventions, ranging from weekly auditing of images taken by technologists to mechanisms for feedback from radiologists to technologists, led to significant improvements in a multicenter study.
New Study Shows Non-Radiologists Interpreting 28 Percent of Imaging for Medicare Patients
June 28th 2024While radiologists interpreted approximately 99 percent of all non-cardiac CT, MRI and nuclear medicine studies in hospital and emergency department settings for Medicare beneficiaries, new research shows significantly less radiologist review of cardiac imaging and office-based imaging.