The FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) has released its ombudsman report for 2011, the first year the office’s electronic tracking system has been used to facilitate record-keeping and trending.
More than 1,000 hospitals have embraced online social networking. It’s as much for them as for the 4,700 or so that have avoided the resource that ECRI Institute has released a new risk analysis, "Social Media in Healthcare," and made it available for free downloading.
Female radiologists, particularly those in leadership roles, remain relatively rare, particularly compared with other specialties. A quarterly Masters of Radiology Panel Discussion published in the January issue of American Journal of Roentgenology surveyed leaders about strategies to encourage more women to enter the radiology field and pursue leadership roles. The answers were varied and identified the lack of a quick fix.
The services and allowed charges by cardiologists for treating Medicare patients increased dramatically between 1999 and 2008, according to an analysis published online Jan. 10 in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. Much of the growth was linked to noninvasive imaging, with resting echocardiograms and nuclear stress testing fueling the lion’s share of growth.
As the healthcare system abandons fee-for-service reimbursement models for the potential savings of value-based reimbursement models, IT services firm CSC suggested that incentives for patients and providers need to more closely resemble each other for the transition to work.
Medical device makers are counting on financial stratagems—buybacks, dividends, acquisitions and the like—to keep shareholders happy in the face of flat sales figures. The drop in demand owes in large part to belt-tightening at hospitals, tougher approval procedures at the FDA, declining medical coverage under health-insurance plans and a weak global economy.
The American College of Radiology (ACR) has joined the ABIM Foundation and eight other medical specialty societies in the Choosing Wisely campaign. Choosing Wisely promotes wise choices by physicians and patients to improve health outcomes, avoid unnecessary interventions and make efficient use of healthcare dollars.
CHICAGO—Due to changes in CPT coding and fee schedules that have reduced reimbursement for stress tests and coronary CT angiography (CCTA) in the 2009 through 2011 Medicare fee schedules, triage strategies that begin with stress EKG or stress echocardiography and progress to CCTA (if the stress test is positive) represent the least expensive options, and are more cost-effective relative to strategies that utilize myocardial perfusion scintigraphy, according to a study presented Nov. 30 at the 97th annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
CHICAGO--The unsustainable cost trajectory in healthcare is well-known, but much less understood are strategies for practices to thrive as government and payors step up efforts to bend the cost curve. Experts examined the drivers and impacts of the cost curve conundrum during a session on Nov. 28 at the 97th Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
CHICAGO—Communicating radiation dose exposure information is a process fraught with landmines. Experts offered a host of strategies for navigating the landmines and sharing dose information with patients during a Nov. 27 session at the 97th Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
CHICAGO—Burton P. Drayer, MD, president of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), met with Health Imaging prior to the RSNA annual conference to discuss the shifting paradigm for radiologists in clinical practice, and how they can better prove their worth in today’s clinical practice.
SAN FRANCISCO—To reinvigorate medical innovation, the U.S. is in “desperate need of governmental and regulatory reform” and positive case examples to show that it still can be achieved, according to Martin B. Leon, MD, who gave a Nov. 7 lecture at the 23rd annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) conference.
A new data network that integrates emerging research on the molecular makeup of diseases with clinical data on individual patients could drive the development of a more accurate classification of disease and ultimately enhance diagnosis and treatment, according to a new report from the National Research Council.
In contrast to Canada, U.S. physician practices spend nearly four times more interacting with payors, according to researchers in the August edition of Health Affairs.
The American College of Radiology (ACR) has issued a letter imploring radiologists to express their disapproval over reimbursement cuts planned for the 2012 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule.
Physician compensation in 2010 flattened, while radiologists faced a decline in average salary, the likely results of dropping reimbursements, according to a survey released this week by Medicus.
As solo physicians become increasingly corralled up by multispecialty practices and larger organizations, medicine faces a growing bureaucratic trend, for patients and physicians. Though the thought of bureaucracy may conjure negative sentiments, radiology can learn and benefit from some important models of bureaucracy, according to the author of an article published in the July issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology.
A federal district court has convicted 41-year-old Radiologist Rajashakher P. Reddy, MD, of more than 30 counts of fraud and obstruction of justice in connection with his signing tens of thousands of radiology reports that neither he nor any other physician actually viewed.
Payors and patients may be vastly overpaying for some of the most common CT, MRI and mammography exams owing to huge price disparities both within and across regions, according to a quarterly report issued by change:healthcare.
Embedding clinical decision support (CDS) into PACS significantly increases the likelihood that radiologists will use the software, but integration must occur at the time of implementation, otherwise physicians may become loath to change their workflows, concluded a study published in the July issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology.
|
RSS 
