Business Intelligence

Providers utilize business intelligence to monitor referral patterns and collaborate with clinicians who order their services. Such analytics tools have also been deployed in the specialty to improve productivity, track patient satisfaction and bolster quality.

Kansas Radiologist Pleads Guilty in $7 Million Fraud and Bribery Case

Heidi Lynn Webster, MD, a former Army officer radiologist has pleaded guilty to defrauding the U.S. government through her role in a scheme to obtain multiple U.S. Army contracts and sub-contracts for radiology equipment and services

Integrating Delivery and Growing Imaging Volume: Longview Regional Medical Center

Sponsored by Hitachi Healthcare Americas

In June 2012, Longview Regional Medical Center (LRMC) in Texas began a multimillion-dollar expansion aimed at making deeper integration of care delivery possible throughout the 230-bed hospital.

Marketing Dose Monitoring and Reduction to Patients

SECTRA

As initiatives for radiation-dose reduction take root in health systems and hospitals around the country—driven, in some cases, by state legislation mandating dose tracking and reporting—these organizations should be careful not to let messaging to patients fall by the wayside, according to Ian Judd, product manager for Sectra.

Three Ways the PPACA Will Help Radiology

Zotec

Despite a host of technical problems, more than 2 million people have already signed up for health coverage under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) mandate.

Game Change

The month we’ve all been counting down to has finally arrived. It’s January 2014, and the individual mandate of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is—at long last, and after many legal battles—in effect.

USPSTF to Review CT Colonography

In what could be the first step in gaining a favorable recommendation for low-dose CT colonography from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), the organization has included the test in its draft research plan on colorectal screening

South Jersey Radiology Associates Merges with Booth Radiology

Two of New Jersey’s oldest imaging center operators, South Jersey Radiology Associates and Booth Radiology have merged forming a 13-location, 60 radiologist practice

OIG and CMS Revise Rules on Donations of EHR Technology

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) have published final rules to renew and revise the 2006 EHR exception and safe harbor from self-referral/anti-kickback requirements

Around the web

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.

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.

The all-in-one Omni Legend PET/CT scanner is now being manufactured in a new production facility in Waukesha, Wisconsin.