Management

This page includes content on healthcare management, including health system, hospital, department and clinic business management and administration. Areas of focus are on cardiology and radiology department business administration. Subcategories covered in this section include healthcare economics, reimbursement, leadership, mergers and acquisitions, policy and regulations, practice management, quality, staffing, and supply chain.

Business 101: Communication and Information Sharing in Radiology

MMP

This article is the final installment in a four-part series on applying basic business concepts to radiology. To read the first installment, click here; to read the second, click here; to read the third, click here.

NLST Proves Lives Can Be Saved: Now Comes the Difficult Step of Implementation

One of the most extensive and ambitious medical-screening trials in US has been stopped. It’s because of good news: Low-dose helical CT (LDCT) exams can cut lung-cancer deaths by as much as 20%, compared with chest radiography alone, according to early results from the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST). The NLST was halted in early November,

Interpreting From Multiple Facilities: The Case for a PACS-driven Workflow

Sponsored by FUJIFILM Healthcare Americas

For the first five years of its existence, Tower Saint John’s Imaging, a full-service outpatient imaging center in Santa Monica, California, that is a joint venture between Saint John’s Health Center and Tower Imaging Medical Group, used its own RIS, PACS, and speech-recognition products separate from those of Saint John’s Health Center. The same

Reimbursement Outlook for 2011: Trouble on the Way

Radisphere

On November 30, the Physician Payment and Therapy Relief Act of 2010 was signed into law, delaying the 23% Medicare physician-payment cut mandated by the sustainable growth rate formula. The legislation replaced the cut with a 2.2% update through December 31, with the intention of giving Congress time to find a more permanent solution. On December

New CMS Rules Complicate Supervision and Interpretation

VMG

Recently altered CMS rules governing diagnostic-imaging supervision and interpretation agreements have created what one knowledgeable observer calls a horrible mess. Health-care attorney Tom Greeson, a partner in the law firm Reed Smith LLP of Falls Church, Virginia, expresses concern that regulatory changes that took effect earlier this year might

Reflections

Here we are at the end of yet another tumultuous year in the health-care arena—perhaps one even more tumultuous than most. There are new laws, new expectations, revised plans, and lots more to write about as we face the consequences—intended and otherwise. Having just returned from the annual gathering of the imaging clan that is RSNA, I am pleased

A Corner Turned

It is rather amazing, for those of us here at imagingBiz who hopefully envisioned this day, that it has arrived much sooner (and with much more definition) than we anticipated when we crafted the concept for Radiology Business Journal a few short years ago. The fact that we are bringing you a 76-page publication—in an era when many other

Achieving Certification

Primary stroke center certification by the Joint Commission is based broadly on three components: standards, guidelines, and performance measures. Under the umbrella of components are 11 criteria that must be met for certification, according to M.J. Hampel, MPH, MBA, senior associate director of the Joint Commission’s Disease-Specific Care

Around the web

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

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.