Category: “Diagnostic Imaging”

The U.S. ultrasound market will grow to $1.88 billion by 2018, representing an annual rate of growth of 5.8 percent

“Private practice radiology flourished in the era of fee-for-service medicine but it is less well poised for the transition to a more capitated form of health care reimbursement with bundled payments and decreased reimbursement,” the authors write.

Canon U.S.A., Inc. and Virtual Imaging, Inc. will serve as one of HealthTrust’s providers of digital radiographic solutions designed to assist its hospital providers in the management of their day-to-day operations of radiology departments, imaging centers, free standing clinics and physician’s offices. HealthTrust (legally known as HealthTrust Purchasing Group, L.P.) serves nearly 1,400 acute care facilities, 800 ambulatory surgery centers and members in more than 10,600 other locations, including physician practices, long-term care and alternate care sites.

In retrospect how wrong they were...

The information also revealed which diagnostic radiology providers earned the most Medicare dollars in 2012:

1. Dr. Angelo Makris, Alexandria, VA -- $5.6 million
2. Dr. Paul Svigals, Cherry Hill, NJ -- $5.1 million
3. Dr. Stephen Liu, Modesto, CA -- $4.6 million
4. Dr. Thanh Van, Houston -- $3.6 million
5. Dr. Anthony Becker, Fresno, CA -- $3.5 million
6. Dr. Robert Ivker, West Orange, NJ -- $3.5 million
7. Dr. William Kelly, Palm Desert, CA -- $3 million
8. Dr. John Rigney, Chappaqua, NY -- $3 million
9. Dr. Patrick Browning, Sacramento, CA -- $2.9 million
10. Dr. Richard Gray, Washington, DC -- $2.8 million
11. Dr. Melvin Rosenblatt, Fairfield, CT -- $2.8 million

“Radiology departments were considered a significant revenue stream; now they’re a cost center.” without a greater exploration of benchmarking data that can help identify broader trends among competing healthcare providers; without more longitudinal thinking from vendors on interoperability issues, the industry will continue to stagnate.

Moving forward, you are seeing ACO's adopting centralized purchasing for all members of the ACO. Supply chain management now has tremendous power within a delivery network. Equipment dealers, both OEMs and resellers, are going to need GPO contracts to even compete for a health care provider's business from now on. Product standardization, volume purchasing power, and volume discounts will play even more of a role as we move forward. Supply chain management is where the power is.

"Implementing ultrasound DICOM structured reporting tools yields a significant improvement in dictation times over conventional reporting methods, according to a study presented on Friday at the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine (SIIM) meeting. Using DICOM structured reports from ultrasound systems significantly reduces dictation time, representing potential time savings of nearly seven days a year for the institution, said presenter Dr. Steven Horii from the University of Pennsylvania Health System."

Driven by the idea that handheld ultrasound can be the modern day version of the stethoscope the POC (point of care) ultrasound market is exploding. GE, Fuji and a rash of other venders have rushed in with products. Ultrasound is an growing and important imaging modality with the advantage of not using ionizing radiation. However the clinical efficacy of POC ultrasound hasn't been proven. This article notes the challenges of POC Ultrasound and believes smaller mobile ultrasound is the answer, not hand-held units. In Ultrasound size does matter.

AuntMinnie.com presents the first in a series of columns on the practice of ultrasound from Dr. Jason Birnholz, an ultrasound veteran with more than 40 years of experience in this field.