Imaging Advantage Lands $6M Health Care Innovation Award

Matthew Skoufalos | | Radiology Business | Business Intelligence
Among the second wave of DHHS Health Care Innovation Awards announced this week was a $6 million meaningful use grant to the Santa Monica, CA-based Imaging Advantage.According to DHHS, the money is part of an award provided by the Affordable Care Act. In conjunction with Vanguard Health Systems and other Chicago-area hospital systems, the company will aim to improve efficiencies and patient safety while reducing unnecessary imaging. Imaging Advantage has dubbed the project it will fund, “The right exam, at the right time, read by the right radiologist”—the slogan of the Society for Nuclear Medicine public information campaign—and aims to save $15 million over three years in improvement to Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP beneficiaries. “Most importantly, this program aims to reduce or eliminate inappropriate advanced imaging utilization that would be redundant or clinically unnecessary,” read an Imaging Advantage press release accompanying the announcement. “It would reduce CT use by a projected 30% that would result in $7 million in savings for CMS and significantly reduce radiation exposure for patients,” according to the statement.

Matthew Skoufalos

Related Content

Orano Med breaks ground on $265M thorium production site
Image-interpretation market scoreboard: Radiologists 72%, others 28%
Lantheus lands rights to budding radiopharmaceuticals for initial outlay of $35M
17 short-term strategies to address the national radiologist shortage
‘SR’ onboards another independent practice, its 1st in the Natural State
Analysis: Allied radiology professionals generate millions of dollars per year in indirect revenues alone

Around the web

Health Imaging
Nearly $800,000 settlement offered to family of man who died during MRI exam

The patient, who was being cared for in the ICU, was not accompanied or monitored by nursing staff during his exam, despite being sedated.

Cardiovascular Business
Global shortage of nuclear imaging isotopes may be over

The nuclear imaging isotope shortage of molybdenum-99 may be over now that the sidelined reactor is restarting. ASNC's president says PET and new SPECT technologies helped cardiac imaging labs better weather the storm.

Cardiovascular Business
‘A huge win’: CMS significantly increases Medicare payments for cardiac CT

CMS has more than doubled the CCTA payment rate from $175 to $357.13. The move, expected to have a significant impact on the utilization of cardiac CT, received immediate praise from imaging specialists.