The CMS Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) program has been made permanent and is expanding nationwide, beginning this year. Radiology providers should act now to adopt and implement appropriate compliance programs. Radiology providers should make efforts to understand the Medicare appeals process and should know that many strategies exist that can be

When John Mowry, digital imaging manager at Cook’s Children’s Health Care System, Fort Worth, Tex, decided to switch from his legacy PACS to a thin-client, Web-based model, he faced a particularly daunting migration situation. The servers in use by the legacy system were on their last legs; meanwhile, there were more than 10 million images across

Radiologists at Yale University figuratively equate their PACS with a toolbox and themselves with artisans, from whose hands now spring forth remarkably useful pictures: namely, manipulated and reconstructed digital images of what lies beneath the epidermis.

Both hospitals and imaging centers are struggling with economic and political pressures that are straining their relationships with staff; finance (administration/owners); radiologists; vendors (IT providers, equipment manufacturers, suppliers, and consultants); referring physicians; and the community (your patients). Collectively, we will call

Medical billing systems are database files managed using programs that perform accounting functions. These are written to accommodate a daunting number of rules imposed by health-insurance companies and state/federal programs. They contain edit functions that screen all relevant acquired demographic and clinical information for completeness and

The proper care (and feeding) of your practice representatives is a process, not an event. Because there is so much at stake, it requires a level of communication that is unprecedented in your business. Imagine, for a moment, that you get up to go to work; when you arrive at your office, no one is happy to see you. They like you well enough, but

On June 18, 2008, a letter was sent to the CMS Coverage and Analysis Group seeking approval of CT colonography (CTC) as a generalized screening tool for colorectal cancer among asymptomatic Medicare patients 50 years of age or older. The letter itself was a calm recitation of years of evidence collected through studies and trials of CTC in various

Acquisitive firms have long been earmarked for challenges based on academic research predicting high failure rates for such companies. While valuation, timing, and culture all play critical roles in a deal, many successful companies rely heavily on acquisitions to achieve their strategic goals. Health Diagnostics, New York City, is one such company