Quality

The focus of quality improvement in healthcare is to bolster performance and processes related to diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. Leaders in this space also ensure the proper selection of imaging exams and procedures, and monitor the safety of services, among other duties. Reimbursement programs such as the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) utilize financial incentives to improve quality. This also includes setting and maintaining care quality initiatives, such as the requirements set by the Joint Commission.

quality

How 1 hospital cut its CT scheduling interval from 6 weeks to 3 days, adding $1.6M in revenue

The University of Rochester Medical Center operates two major imaging sites that handle most outpatient CT requests, completing an average of nearly 3,300 exams each month. 
 

knee x-ray

Which interventional radiology procedure is most cost-effective for treating knee osteoarthritis?

OA impacts more than 595M people worldwide and produces $80B in healthcare costs in the U.S. alone, experts detailed in the American Journal of Roentgenology.  

CDC highlights radiology’s critical role in striving for ‘hospital diagnostic excellence’

DxEx, as the agency calls it for short, ensures that imaging and other tests are ordered, interpreted, communicated and acted upon appropriately. 

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Hospital quality improvement project aims to reduce radiologists’ administrative burden

The University of Toronto has standardized processes related to multidisciplinary conferences, hoping to provide relief for participating abdominal specialists. 

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American College of Radiology ‘strongly disagrees’ with making CMS payment model mandatory

The feds see this as a way of increasing specialist engagement in value-based care and bolstering their collaboration with PCPs and Medicare beneficiaries. 

time is brain stroke care hour glass clock turnaround

AI triage system fails to improve radiologist performance or turnaround times

Commercially available software for intracranial hemorrhage detection did not appear to hold up in a prospective, single-center study, experts write in the American Journal of Roentgenology

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UnitedHealthcare releases details on new ‘gold card’ program impacting over 100 radiology CPT codes

One physician criticized UHC's effort to reduce the burden of prior authorization, calling it a "good PR project." 

White patients undergo higher rates of diagnostic imaging in the ED than their black counterparts

Previous studies have demonstrated that imaging overuse is pervasive in the ED, with “defensive medicine” a common reason, experts wrote in JAMA Network Open

Around the web

After reviewing years of data from its clinic, one institution discovered that issues with implant data integrity frequently put patients at risk. 

Prior to the final proposal’s release, the American College of Radiology reached out to CMS to offer its recommendations on payment rates for five out of the six the new codes.

“Before these CPT codes there was no real acknowledgment of the additional burden borne by the providers who accepted these patients."

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