"With outpatient imaging centers facing DRA reimbursement cuts, new IDTF standards, and threats to shared leasing arrangements, industry experts say the way to survive today—and tomorrow—is to get back to basics. Not long ago, an outpatient imaging center could open its doors in just about any metro community in the United States and reap sizeable earnings from high-profit reimbursements for such modalities as MRI, PET, and CT, plus the bread-and-butter x-ray, ultrasound, and mammography. But as of January 1, 2007, those good times are gone, thanks to the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (DRA), which substantially cut Medicare payments for those formerly high-profit modalities. The DRA reductions—and the private payors that have made similar cuts—have left some imaging centers holding million-dollar debts for new 64-slice CTs without enough patient volume to pay the notes, let alone make a profit. As if the DRA was not enough bad news, imaging centers enrolled as independent diagnostic testing facilities (IDTFs) have been subjected to 14 new standards, and threatened with more regulations and lawsuits that may eliminate physician shared leasing arrangements in states where they are not barred already..."

"Dream Reading Rooms Require Team Effort", (c) Cheryl Hall Harris, Health Imaging.com, 4/07

For full text of the article, go to: http://www.bernarch.com/Articles-4-07-HealthImaging-DreamReadingRooms.htm