A majority of doctors abdicated “major responsibility” for reducing healthcare costs in a physician survey about cost control. They also expressed a lack of enthusiasm for eliminating fee-for-service payment models.

With $1 billion in payments on the line, hospitals are homing in on patient satisfaction. They are hiring chief patient satisfaction officers and patient navigators and tapping into volunteers to check on patient needs. Other strategies include “yacker trackers” to hush noisy nurses and yoga for patients and staff.

The American Medical Association House of Delegates voted June 18 to recognize obesity as a disease. The move, which overrode recommendations of AMA’s Council on Science and Public Health, could open the door to improved reimbursement for treatment.

Two experts outlined the pros and cons of pay for performance in the Wall Street Journal. The article includes a chart placing radiologists at the top of specialist compensation. Meanwhile, noninvasive cardiology showed the highest growth in median compensation from 2002 to 2011.

As healthcare delivery and payment systems are redesigned, providers are shouldering a greater share of risk. They also are presented with an opportunity to employ new models to deliver sustainable, cost-effective care and cost-effective access to imaging. By leveraging big data, imaging providers may meet these dual goals, according to the policy brief "Beyond Fee-For-Service: Emerging Payment Models in Radiology," issued by the Harvey L. Neiman Health Policy Institute.

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) has introduced the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) Transparency and Accountability Act of 2013, calling for changes to the process by which USPSTF makes formal recommendations for preventive care services.

The Medicare Trustees released its annual report May 31 and projected that the Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust fund will remain solvent two years longer than last year’s projection, or until 2026.

Use of IMRT to treat prostate cancer, which carries a reimbursement rate approximately 50 percent higher than conformal radiotherapy, skyrocketed from zero in 2000 to 82.1 percent in 2009 among postprostatectomy patients. Despite the swift uptake, IMRT may not provide morbidity benefits among these patients, according to a study published online May 20 in JAMA Internal Medicine.