After unprecedented growth over the past two decades, freestanding imaging providers have found the past few years challenging. Increased regulatory oversight, negative reimbursement changes, tighter access to financing, and general business uncertainty have all taken their toll, and pessimism within the industry runs rampant. In response, some

You know the tale. In the end, the steady pace of the tortoise won out over the supreme confidence and sheer speed of the hare; the hare simply did not value the focus, commitment, skill set, and tenacity exhibited by the tortoise. There are lots of lessons to be learned from this story, and over the years, most of us have learned how to apply at

In the late 1990s, Yale School of Medicine, New haven, Connecticut, implemented its first PACS. James Brink, MD, chair of the department of radiology and professor of diagnostic radiology, recalls how radiologists initially adapted to the brave new digital world: “It took some of the more senior radiologists a while to get used to using a cine

Lower mortality rates are among the benefits delivered by diagnostic imaging, according to a study in the December 2009 issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology: JACR. The study—by David W. Lee, PhD, of GE Healthcare (Waukesha, Wisconsin), and David A. Foster, PhD, of Thomson Reuters (Ann Arbor, Michigan)—examines the association

Community hospitals, like their larger counterparts, continue to encounter financial challenges as they strive to deliver cutting-edge imaging services. For some institutions, engaging a full-service teleradiology provider could result in cost savings.

Harris County Hospital District (HCHD) is the public health-care system for the nation’s third most populous county (Harris County, Texas); with 44 locations, it generates 420,000 radiology procedures and 70,000 cardiology procedures each year. When HCHD made the decision to expand its electronic medical record (EMR) to include PACS and other

As radiology practices nationwide look for new revenue streams to compensate for ever-declining reimbursement, the answer might be getting back to basics, according to Greg Thomson and Dan Simile Jr of Medical Management Professionals, Inc (MMP), Atlanta, Georgia. In the first installment of a four-part series on critical business principles,

Imagine the situation facing radiology practices and their changing market relationships as multiple, concurrent chess matches. In order to reach a respectable outcome without getting swept away by the convergence of moves coming in rapid succession from prepared opponents, radiologists need to understand that this particular game is strategic, not