WASHINGTON, DC — Taking the imaging world by complete surprise, the Senate voted with the House on Wednesday, December 21, to equalize technical component reimbursement rates paid under the Physician Fee Schedule with those paid for under the Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System beginning in 2007, dealing the freestanding imaging center

As a growing percentage of outpatient imaging shifts to the freestanding and office-based settings, so goes the number of outpatient imaging centers: the Verispan report identified 5,750 in 2005, up 5.7% from the year before. However, the same report noted a slight decrease in the average number of imaging procedures performed per center suggesting

The number of multi-facility diagnostic imaging center chains in America continued its precipitous rise in 2005, according to the latest Diagnostic Imaging Center Market Report from Verispan. The research company identified 687 diagnostic imaging center chains that owned, managed, or leased a total 3,818 imaging centers as of August 2005. The

As health care costs rise and imaging leads the way, payors clearly have targeted radiology as an opportunity to slow growth. Beset by reimbursement cuts, other specialties see imaging as a way to add ancillary income and the Stark in-office imaging carve-out as the door to that opportunity. Organized radiology is lobbying Washington to emphasize

Beginning January 1, 2006, imaging centers and in-office providers of imaging will collect 25% less on the technical component for most MR/MRA, CT/CTA, and ultrasound studies conducted on contiguous body parts. Transvaginal and ultrasound of the breast were spared the contiguous-body-part discount, as were hospital-based imaging centers paid under