A corporate offshoot of radiology benefit management (RBM) company MedSolutions, Nashville, Tenn, has begun marketing a program of subspecialized teleradiology services to payors.

In times of turmoil, I have always turned to science fiction. Hard science is, well, too hard for this intellect, and science fiction offers refuge when the world around is, as Wordsworth said, too much with us.

Everywhere one looks, these days, there is uncertainty about the future of radiology. Radiology technical and professional reimbursement is down, with further Medicare and private-payor cuts almost always on the horizon. Profit margins in imaging centers are down as a result of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, and professional revenue is down due

The CMS Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) is again the center of attention for the medical community. The State Children’s Health Insurance Program bill passed in December 2007 averted the last SGR-mandated cut by funding a 0.5% update for six months. We are, however, once again at the precipice of unprecedented, and arguably untenable, physician

There is little question, and ample evidence, that merger-and-acquisition activity in the diagnostic imaging business sector has increased since the Deficit Reduction Act (DRA) in 2005, and since Medicare Physician Fee Schedule changes and IDTF Standards changes in 2006 and 2007. Many in the prognostication business have been forecasting some sort

A lesson in business maturity: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer met the company's cofounder Bill Gates when they were both undergraduates at Harvard. Gates dropped out to build one of the most successful companies in history. Ballmer went on to graduate from Harvard and eventually ended up at Stanford, in the graduate school of business. By the time

The number of freestanding diagnostic imaging centers opening in the United States has slowed considerably as markets have become increasingly saturated and reimbursement has declined. That’s why, more than ever, it is important to consider carefully the feasibility of opening a new center. One way to weigh the potential risks and benefits—and to

An adage of the legal profession holds that if you’ve seen one contract, you have seen exactly one contract. That is never truer than when the contract in question is between an imaging center and a payor, even though 90% of the agreement’s language will have been cast from boilerplate used over and over. Norm Davidson is president of Provider