Last year, the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) referred to the 2.3% medical device excise tax as a “job killing” burden that would also “stifle innovation.” More than a year after the NCPA Issue Brief, the tax lives on

Even in the wake of health care reform, radiology practices continue to struggle with managing payment from uninsured patients. The problem plagues hospital-based groups, in particular, according to Krista Pelensky, director of operations with Zotec-MMP. “Many hospital-based groups have seen an uptick in uninsured business and an increase in emergency-department services,” she says.

Few business processes for radiology practices are as fraught as negotiating managed-care contracts. Their duration and durability put a significant level of both current and future income on the line, but small and medium-sized practices, in particular, might feel that they have little leverage in the negotiating process. The keys to gaining the

Imaging Healthcare Specialists (“IHS”), a 30-radiologist practice based in San Diego, California, has a simple ethos driving its business decisions. “We view ourselves, first and foremost, as a medical practice,” Thomas Cleary, president and COO of Imaging Healthcare Specialists, explains. “Every day, every employee who works for us—from the person who schedules the patient, to the technologist who provides the exam, and from the radiologist delivering the report to the IT person—is making an impact on patients’ lives.”

The most common misconception regarding medical-practice reimbursement is that it’s about nothing more than money. In fact, reimbursement is about much more than the dollar numbers associated with CPT® codes in payors’ various fee schedules, and any discussion of it that doesn’t also touch on process, strategy, and service is incomplete.

In a debate on H.J. Res. 59, the Continuing Resolution, that would raise the U.S. debt ceiling, Senators John McCain (R-Ariz) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) urged their colleagues to consider an amendment to repeal the 2.3 percent Medical Device Tax

Seventeen senators have written to U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to ask her to delay penalties on providers who will not be ready to meet Stage 2 requirements of the Electronic Health Records (EHR) incentive program by next year

Lawyers for Minneapolis-based Virtual Radiologic (vRad) have amended the company’s patent-infringement complaint against Tandem Radiology, Direct Radiology and Imaging Advantage to also include an additional recent patent