Comparative-effectiveness research has become the platform for several organizations, including the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER). Based at the Institute for Technology Assessment at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, ICER’s mission is to lead comparative-effectiveness–research innovation through methods that the

Randy Roat says, “The news for radiology could be worse.” Roat, vice president of radiology services for Medical Management Professionals, Inc. (MMP), Atlanta, Georgia, refers to the reimbursement changes contained in the 2011 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS). “Counterintuitively, almost every single one of the imaging RVUs was raised,” he

From a transactions perspective, 2010 was marked by a frenzy of imaging-center acquisitions on the part of hospitals. A number of factors came together to create the perfect storm of a buyer’s market for imaging centers, including uncertainty surrounding health-care reform and the opportunity for cash-strapped hospitals to augment the bottom line

It’s a challenge faced by hospitals and imaging centers alike: Upon implementing a new piece of imaging technology and under pressure to maximize utilization as quickly as possible, raising awareness among the patients most likely to take advantage of that technology becomes critical. This also represents a messaging challenge: How do you most

Since the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act went into effect in February 2010, regulations regarding health-care data security have become more stringent than ever before. For instance, the DHHS secretary is required to publish the names of covered entities that have experienced any data breach involving

There are two major ways that a physician ends up in court, sued for malpractice: first, by providing care in a negligent manner; second, by failing to inform the patient properly. While radiologists are not exempt from the former problem, they have largely been shielded from the latter because the job of communicating findings has, by professional

Decision support might be the technology that brings imaging out of external control and back into self-regulation, since its effectiveness appears to equal or exceed that of other utilization-management strategies (including burdensome preauthorization). Every decision-support program, however, must be able to tell the ordering physician how

You might recall that a few years ago, in this column, I extolled the virtues of a unique book by Daniel Pink called A Whole New Mind: Why Right-brainers Will Rule the Future (Riverhead, 2006). It discusses the emergence, in our society, of a new appreciation for a balance between left- and right-brain thinking.