Knee and shoulder MRI before radiography adds to patient care costs.
Performing MRI before radiography on patients presenting with shoulder or knee pain, or with tendonitis, represents a potential gap in care, according to an article published in the Journal of the American College of Radiology.
Current Appropriate Criteria (AC) state that knee and shoulder pain should be first assessed with radiography before moving ahead to more costly imaging studies, except in cases of significant trauma to the knee.
Researchers from Massachusetts, Illinois, Missouri and California undertook a retrospective study to determine how often MRIs were performed before radiographs for knee or shoulder pain, and the associated costs. MRI use before radiography was also compared between patients who were on Medicare and those who were commercially insured.
The researchers found that approximately 28 percent of all knee MRIs, and 35 percent to 37 percent of all shoulder MRIs were performed without recent prior radiographs. “The MRIs performed without prior radiographs among patients with knee pain accounted for spending of $1,089,704 in the Medicare population and $4,439,394 in the commercially insured population, whereas among those with nontraumatic knee pain, the corresponding expenditure was $1,011,136 and $3,891,560, respectively,” the authors wrote. “The MRI exams performed without prior radiographs among those with shoulder pain or tendonitis accounted for spending of $1,773,486 in the Medicare population and $4,172,714 among the commercially insured, whereas among those with nontraumatic shoulder pain or tendonitis, the corresponding expenditure was $1,082,224 and $2,839,312, respectively.”
The researchers concluded that the use of MRI before radiography for knee and shoulder pain “represents a potential gap in care and should be considered as an area for establishment of performance measures.”
Breast MRI Study Examines Common Factors with False Negatives and False Positives
July 24th 2024The absence of ipsilateral breast hypervascularity is three times more likely to be associated with false-negative findings on breast MRI and non-mass enhancement lesions have a 4.5-fold likelihood of being linked to false-positive results, according to new research.
Systematic Review: PET/MRI May be More Advantageous than PET/CT in Cancer Imaging
July 18th 2024While PET/MRI and PET/CT had comparable sensitivity for patient-level regional nodal metastases and lesion-level recurrence, the authors of a systematic review noted that PET/MRI had significantly higher accuracy in breast cancer and colorectal cancer staging.