April/May 2010

Ask providers of women’s imaging services why they stick with the niche, in spite of declining reimbursement and the risk of malpractice suits, and the answer you’ll get is a simple one: patient interaction. It’s the ability to work directly with patients in potentially life-changing ways that continues to attract talented radiologists to the

Diagnostic imaging remains critically important to the bottom lines of individual hospitals and health systems alike, continuing to subsidize many less-profitable and unprofitable service lines while providing predictable growth. A rapidly changing imaging landscape, however, is spurring institutions to alter models for, and methods of, managing

Leading an independent radiology practice has never been more challenging. Congress has escalated the timetable for reductions to the outpatient-imaging technical component to help pay for health-care reform. Health systems have embarked on a medical-practice–buying spree across specialties and primary care, leading to some very well publicized

In a coincidence worth noting, Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations was published in 1776, the year that our nation-to-be declared its independence from what was then the Kingdom of Great Britain. In that work, Smith argued that the colonies were not worth the cost of keeping them. Nonetheless, Smith’s ideas and US commerce, including the health-care

Regardless of the effects of health-care reform, the United States cannot continue on the current health-care track, given deep, multiyear federal budget deficits. It is simply not sustainable, at a cost of more than 16% of the gross domestic product (GDP)¹; in comparison, socialized medicine in the United Kingdom claims a mere 8% of its GDP. To

Author Thomas H. Lee, MD, writes that the problem with medicine is people like him: primarily men, in their 50s and beyond, who learned medicine when it was more about art and less about money. “We were taught to go to the hospital before dawn, stay until our patients were stable, focus on the needs of each patient before us, and not worry about

When news spread that Sutter Health (Sacramento, California) planned to cut loose its long-time radiology provider in Sacramento in favor of a captive model, some observers wondered how Radiological Associates of Sacramento (RAS), a 76-radiologist practice founded in 1917, would survive.

Claiming a share of the capital budget for imaging equipment is not always hard, but it certainly can seem overwhelming. The financial-justification step of capital budgeting can be particularly daunting, but it will be less difficult if it is preceded by an understanding of pro forma development and the concepts that underlie it, including total

If you are like many physicians, you are lamenting the losses to your retirement plan after the financial meltdown. You might have lost a substantial amount, and you might wonder how you can quickly regain the losses.

In February, the FDA announced a new initiative to reduce unnecessary radiation exposure from CT, nuclear-medicine, and fluoroscopy exams. The agency’s three-pronged approach will include issuing safeguard requirements for device manufacturers, incorporating quality-assurance measures in mandatory CMS accreditation for imagers, and creating

You know the tale. In the end, the steady pace of the tortoise won out over the supreme confidence and sheer speed of the hare; the hare simply did not value the focus, commitment, skill set, and tenacity exhibited by the tortoise. There are lots of lessons to be learned from this story, and over the years, most of us have learned how to apply at