The only constant is change is an apt mantra for the imaging industry over the past several years. For the second time in two years, CMS has proposed comprehensive changes in the anti-markup provision of the purchased diagnostic test rule (AMR) in the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) regulations. The most significant of the 2008 finalized

Physicians are understandably suspicious of efficiency efforts in medicine, but nowhere in the Hippocratic oath are they absolved from addressing the appropriate delivery of care

Finally, some good news for imaging. The eleventh-hour override of the president’s veto in early July saved the day for physicians, if only temporarily. Now, the bad news: The cumulative adjustments in the sustainable growth rate affecting the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule will now come due in a mere 18 months. The 10% reduction scheduled for

In 1998, Lynn Elliott, MBA, CPA, accepted a position as CEO of the thriving, hospital-based practice of Radiology Associates of Tarrant County (RATC), Fort Worth, Tex. With nine hospital clients but just one full-service imaging center, RATC charged Elliott with the task of growing the practice’s outpatient imaging center business. Fresh from a

During a client consultation via conference call last month, I was asked what other radiology practices are doing to deliver reports. “What they are doing is less important than providing what your referrers want,” I replied. “How do we find out?” asked the practice representative. “Ask them,” I said.

In what seems to be becoming as much a harbinger of summer as fireworks or cookouts, on July 7, 2008, CMS published its proposed Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) payment update for the next fiscal year. Once again, it includes a number of provisions intended to address CMS concerns about the appropriateness of the provision of imaging

It’s been a year and a half since the debut of the DRA imaging cuts, and the dust is beginning to settle in the outpatient imaging market, according to Douglas Lynch, senior vice president and US chief risk officer, and Thomas Bruce, senior vice president and senior credit officer, GE Healthcare Financial Services (GEHFS) Services, Brookfield, Wis.

You cannot pick up a newspaper today without reading about the 47 million uninsured US residents. Well, that is only the tip of the iceberg.