MEDNAX has acquired Hartford–based Jefferson Radiology and Jefferson Imaging Associates as part of MEDNAX’s vRad—a global teleradiology company with over 500 U.S. board-certified radiologists.

Anthem’s decision to quit paying for outpatient imaging exams performed in hospitals is getting broad consumer exposure, as NPR has picked up a Sept. 26 Kaiser Health News report on the development.

The disconnect over CT radiation discussions between emergency-room providers and the patients they serve may be wider than expected in the Image Wisely era. At one site, a new survey has shown that more than three-quarters of providers thought they’d routinely discussed radiation doses with CT patients—while fewer than one-quarter of patients said they’d been so informed.

In emergency radiology, the price radiologists pay for taking every phone call that comes in during a read—and then taking the time to hear out each caller—is racking up slower report turnaround times. No surprise there, but a new study shows the total duration of such phone calls within an hour to be the single most telling turnaround-time predictor among all tasks that take ED rads away from their overnight reads.

Among the concerns with which U.S. healthcare is presently reckoning, the phenomenon of physician burnout may or may not be one of the more overblown. Either way, recent survey research has shown growing numbers of doctors feel they’re essentially working in a chronic state of stress-induced exhaustion. Radiologists are no exception. What are the causes of and cures for burnout within medical imaging?

A Sept. 9 article published in the Journal of the American College of Radiology examined cobranding strategies for academic radiology practices considering partnership-based network expansion.

Radiologists who spend more than seven hours each day in front of a PACS workstation suffer more work-affecting musculoskeletal pain than their less sedentary colleagues, and the particular symptoms vary between men and women as well as between older and younger groupings.

A recent paper by a team of researchers led by Jay, R. Parikh, MD, with the University of Texas Anderson Cancer Center in Houston explores bullying in radiology. Published in the August issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology, it also includes a seven-step strategy of combatting such behavior.