The flawed Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula is a dark cloud of uncertainty that annually hangs over healthcare practitioners, threatening to trigger the government-mandated double digit cut in reimbursement rates for Medicare beneficiaries. When the temporary SGR patch was extended in April 2014 (for the 17th time), it was the inclusion of the ICD-10 delay that took healthcare by surprise and overshadowed other provisions of the Act. While the ICD-10 delay certainly warrants the attention of healthcare providers, there are other provisions included in the Protecting Access to Medicare Act (PAMA) of 2014 that deserve equal attention so that clinicians can prepare for the impending changes.

 Reston, Va. (November 20, 2014) — The Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) has released a new infographic showing how certain types of cancer can be treated using nuclear medicine therapy. Targeted Cancer Treatment with Nuclear Medicine Therapy is a visual guide to radioisotope therapy, a personalized treatment where a radioactive drug compound seeks and destroys cancer cells.

Last summer brought something of a media moment for mammography in the U.S. The spotlight shone on the star—3-D imaging for breast-cancer screening—after the Journal of the American Medical Association published a study showing that tomosynthesis, when added to digital mammography, is a natural at catching invasive cancers while exposing false positives as impostors.

Tomosynthesis is a relatively new type of imaging technology that utilizes x-rays to create a 3-dimensional image of the breast and is mainly used to detect and diagnose cancers. Not yet considered the standard in clinical care, most imaging centers still employ conventional digital mammograms as their primary method of detecting breast cancer. Conventional mammograms take x-rays of the breast from different angles to create cross-sectional 2-dimensional images. Imaging centers must decide if replacing existing conventional mammography systems with tomosynthesis makes sense from a clinical and financial perspective. What are some factors that drive this decision making process? Will adding this technology to your imaging center create value for shareholders?

When Emory University Hospital talks about fighting infectious disease, people listen. The Atlanta institution is now sharing lessons learned about radiology’s role in the process earlier this year, when Emory went four-for-four curing patients stricken with Ebola. 

The radiology department of the Central Alabama VA remains perilously understaffed, but system leaders have stepped up efforts to see that all diagnostic images get read, and without undue delay.

Last week’s decision by CMS to cover low-dose CT for lung cancer screening was widely hailed by medical associations that have a dog in the fight. Rooters included the ACR, the Lung Cancer Alliance and the American Thoracic Society. But critics quickly weighed in—from both sides of the debate.

CMS’s willingness to pay for CT lung cancer screenings isn’t likely to spur a stampede. “The average at-risk smoking public is not a seeker of this kind of service,” notes Reginald Munden, MD, a principal investigator in the National Lung Screening Trial. But that doesn’t mean some radiology practices won’t see an uptick in demand. Are they ready?