The DR Blog

Effective immediately, theDRblog.com will merge into our Carestream Health Digital Medical Solutions blog, Everything Rad at http://blog.carestreamhealth.com. Visit and you will find great content of interest to all radiology professionals, worldwide, including great DR content. Our goal is to continue sharing great stories about digital radiography that can benefit you and your staff. To find DR-related content on our Everything Rad site, simply click on any of the DR tags within the topics/tag cloud diagram.

Also, the “What is it” contest is over (it was the front end of a mountain bike)
11 very smart radiology professionals guessed that Yes, it was the front end of a mountain bike. They will be receiving their thedrblog.com coffee mugs within a few weeks.  Raise your coffee mugs in praise of these clever folk!

We wish you sharper studies, lower dosages, less paperwork, more productive workflow, higher utilization and happy referring physicians in the coming year.

Happy 2010 from Carestream Health!

Carestream Health believes that healthcare reform will be signed into law before the end of January. The act (whatever emerges from conference) raises as many questions as it addresses.

Will the healthcare act that permits 30 million uninsured to enter the system adequately provide for the professionals, facilities, and equipment to care for these new patients? Will the infrastructure hold up to the strain of this additional burden? Will there be radiologists available to read the studies of these new patients? Will there be technologists to take the images? Who will defend the practices against the lawsuits from these new patients? Who will pay for the increased malpractice insurance costs? Who will make sure that utilization levels allow rural areas to have the same access to health care as urban areas?

It’s time to add tort reform to lower the cost of malpractice insurance, simplified (rather than more complicated) billing to streamline the process, and an economic stimulus package designed to help the industry train new professionals in needed specialties (like radiology and primary care) to accommodate the new demand for healthcare services.

DRX-1 customer Susan Chenault, Director of Outpatient Imaging, Huntsville Imaging Center—the Huntsville Hospital outpatient facility.

Here’s what she said about image quality from their new DRX-1 wireless detector. (We interviewed Susan at RSNA 2009.)

On Tuesday, the American College of Radiology submitted comments to CMS on their physician fee schedule for 2010: Final Rule.

At Carestream Health, we agree with the key points covered in this 16-page letter.

1. Equipment utilization. ACR is pleased that CMS revised their position on radiology therapy and IR, but still disagrees with the proposed 90% utilization for MRI and CT equipment over $1 million–because the ruling is based on insufficient data from outside six major metro areas, and ignores data from recent studies (including the RBMA study).

2. CMS appears to have changed (in error?) the basis for computing cost of CT and MRI to a 52 week utilization rather than the traditional 50 week schedule used till now.

3. CMS has used a flawed supplemental study (PPIS) conducted on a physician rather than on a practice level to report radiology practice expense at a 30% reduction from $204.86 down to $134.84–a number with which ACR disagrees strongly. ACR has requested that current radiology compensation levels be continued until the data from other more accurate surveys can be reviewed.

Other points in the letter support CMS’s additional reporting period of 6 months for claims-based reporting, and their decision not to move forward in 2010 with the additional reporting criterion of minimal patient sample size–a decision in favor of reduced complexity.

The confusing and perplexing new CMS transmittal for Date Of Service (DOS) reporting will be delayed for at least six months while the issue can be studied further. (See CMS transmittal 1873.) This has been the subject of countless discussions, letters to our representatives, representation by both RBMA and ACR to bring about this hoped-for delay. Cheers, RBMA!

Meanwhile, as of this post, new Place Of Service (POS) rules still go into effect in January and interpreting these rules is still difficult for many imaging centers–where the radiologist happens to be when he/she reads the image, dictates the report, reviews and approves the report–is such a fluid situation these days that coding the service is difficult if not impossible for many businesses. We applaud RBMA and other organizations seeking to clarify this costly and troublesome administrative change so that radiology can continue with minimal interruption and expense.

THIS CONTEST HAS ENDED.

The most recent “What is it” contest is over (it was three duck breasts with pellets in the bottom two)

The new contest starts today—what is it?!!

One very smart radiology professional guessed that Yes, it was three duck breasts with pellets. He/she will be receiving their thedrblog.com coffee mugs within a few weeks. Raise your coffee mugs in praise of this clever person!

Meanwhile, start guessing.  Hopefully, this one won’t stump you.

Prize(s) more of our popular thedrblog.com coffee mugs! To enter, give us your entry in a comment on this post.

Employees of Carestream Health and their agencies are not eligible to win.

In a recent webpost on ValueMD. medical schools forum, the editor makes the point that upwards of 25% of all primary care residencies go unfilled each year. Family medicine is certainly one of the major sources of referrals to imaging centers, and Carestream Health supports the incentives still present in the much discussed Senate health care reform bill to increase payments for primary care physicians. This group is the backbone of our healthcare system and certainly the lowest-paid group. Why would a physician choose primary care knowing that the respect, compensation, and working conditions in many other specialties is greater? We need to make it desirable for primary care physicians to enter and stay in the field, or we’ll have no one to take care of us when the baby boomers become seniors.

Many recent posts in the RBMA practice management forum support our position that the primary care physician needs and deserves a better deal.

Cristen Bolan, editor, Imaging Technology News discusses hot trends at the show this year.

Kathy Hood, Director of Radiology at AnMed Health (Anderson, SC), discusses the cost justification for the DRX-1, interviewed at RSNA 2009.