Check out this interesting Washington Post article on AARP, healthcare reform, and insurance. It’s about how the senior advocacy group is involved in all three—and it raises some interesting questions.
A new survey published in the November issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology, reports that 44% of radiology practices utilized teleradiology companies in 2007—essentially triple the rate of four years earlier and approaching half of all radiology groups.
Five or six years ago, radiologists touted teleradiology as a way to help them get a good night’s sleep. Now there’s clear irony in teleradiology causing more than a few radiologists to lose sleep.
“On one hand, it [teleradiology] is much welcomed because of the relief from after-hours call it offers,” wrote the authors of “Radiology Practices’ Use of External off-Hours Teleradiology Services in 2007 and Changes Since 2003.” “On the other hand, it has provoked much anxiety. More specifically, it has given rise to concerns that external teleradiology firms will displace local radiology practices…” Read the rest of this entry »
The FDA is investigating CT brain perfusion studies for diagnosing and treating stroke, according an October 8 notice on the agency Web site. The concern rose out of 206 patients at one facility in an 18-month period who received radiation doses that were approximately eight times the expected level. The patients were supposed to receive a maximum dose of 0.5 Gy but instead received received 3 Gy to 4 Gy doses, according to the FDA.
The American College of Radiology reported that the FDA is concerned that the situation at this incident may “reflect more widespread problems with CT quality assurance programs” and that FDA encourages facilities to review their CT protocols and to “report any medical device adverse events related to CT that do not meet the requirements for mandatory reporting.”
New Congressional Budget Office (CBO) research suggests that medical malpractice reform could save $54 billion in the coming decade, according to an article published in the Washington Post. The CBO calculation was based on a $250,000 cap on pain and suggering awards, a $500, 000 cap on punitive damages, a one-year deadline for adults to file suit and three-year deadline for minors.
“These numbers show that this problem deserves more than lip service from policy-makers,” Utah Republican senator Orin Hatch said in a written statement. “Unfortunately, up to now, that has been all the president and his Democratic allies in Congress have been willing to provide.”
Any healthcare reform that passes will be a compromise, so I’m not convinced the above assumptions should become law, but Hatch is correct that the left hasn’t provided anything more than lip service on malpractice reform. And while our legislative system has been at near complete ideological loggerheads since the Clinton administration, keeping the hot spotlights of public attention still seems like the best way to break the stalemate.
Radiologists and imaging administrators are usually interested in sources of management data. The Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) recently released its Cost Survey for Single-Specialty Practices: 2009 Report Based on 2008 data. The report provides a wide range of financial data from practices that can provide performance benchmarks — or better yet — help you develop your own. MGMA member practices tend to have quality professional management, which can translate to outstanding performance.
While you can’t take anyone else’s numbers and make them the gospel for how your practice should perform, seeing how successful practices function and thinking about how you might apply that to yours can be time well spent. As a sample of what the MGMA cost survey provides, here is its data on accounts receivable data from the new survey.
Even when physicians who order imaging exams read and acknowledge electronic alerts from critical imaging studies, 7.2% of the time there’s no follow-up within a month, according to a recent study in the archives published in Archives of Internal Medicine and reported on MedPage Today. Interestingly, notifying multiple physicians electronically seems to decrease follow-up, perhaps suggesting that when two doctors are notified each thinks the other may be following up. The findings come from a study of 1,196 critical imaging notifications sent to physicians using an electronic medical record system.
The study did not compare this type of reporting arrangement to others, it merely pointed out that acknowledging receipt and reading of a report in this matter is not a panacea for the challenges rads face in communicating critical test results. Read the rest of this entry »
