DALLAS—Radiologists may be missing the boat by overlooking the Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS), “an elegantly simple incentive program made complicated by the government,” C. Matthew Hawkins, MD, radiology fellow at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, said during an educational session at the annual meeting of the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine (SIIM).

DALLAS—Radiation dose monitoring initiatives bring both benefits and flaws, according to Jessica Clements, MS, medical physicist and radiation safety officer at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, during an education session at the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine (SIIM) annual meeting.

Rationing has become a dirty word in healthcare politics, but a survey of oncologists, patients and members of the general public found a majority supported controlling healthcare costs by denying payment for expensive care if it didn’t improve survival or quality of life, according to results presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago.

The Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) has been a lightning rod for discussion since its inclusion in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). But while supporters viewed it as a centerpiece of reform, and detractors called it rationing, IPAB may never get a chance to impact healthcare at all, according to an article published May 29 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Continuing its focus on meeting customer needs, Toshiba America Medical Systems, Inc. named Beverly Plost director, MR Business Unit. Plost will be responsible for implementing strategic marketing plans to drive growth and profitability of Toshiba’s MR product line. Plost will also interface with Toshiba’s global business unit at Toshiba Medical Systems Corporation (TMSC) in Japan to communicate the needs and requirements of the U.S. market.

The Access to Medical Imaging Coalition (AMIC) today said that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO)’s scoring of President Obama’s FY14 budget confirmed that the use of prior authorization schemes for imaging within the Medicare program would produce no savings and impede Medicare beneficiaries’ access to life-saving imaging services.

The endlessly quotable Yogi Berra once said, “It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.” An interesting study on healthcare spending may have proven this quip true once again, which could mean good news for the sustainability of the U.S. healthcare system.

A systemic analysis of clinical oncology trials shows discrepancies in the structure of cancer trials as well as differences among oncology studies, according to a study published online in JAMA Internal Medicine. The findings suggest room for improvement to help stakeholders and policy makers understand how research affects practice and determine optimal use of healthcare resources.