Carestream Health and medical business management solutions provider Technology Partners have inked a co-marketing contract that will enable Technology Partners Imagineradiology billing software to be integrated with Carestream's RIS/PACS platforms.

The Department of Justice has announced that Wheaton Community Hospital, the city of Wheaton, Minn., and Stanley Gallagher, MD, have agreed to pay $846,461 to settle a whistleblower suit charging that they violated the False Claims Act.

Minneapolis-based outpatient radiology imaging services, Center for Diagnostic Imaging (CDI) has opened its newest outpatient imaging center in Waukesha, Wis. at the Westbrook Health Center.

Trinity Health of Novi, Mich., has purchased 1,200 bundled NextGen EHR and NextGen EPM (Enterprise Practice Management) software licenses from NextGen Healthcare Information Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of Quality Systems.

Tenet Healthcare will be implementing Cerner Corporation health IT technology to help the health system boost its clinical information system capabilities and qualify for incentives under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009.

RIS/PACS solutions have alleviated the concerns of misplacing patient records and lags in turnaround times for radiology departments and imaging centers, allowing for the rapid retrieval of patient images and reports from remote locations.

The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (DRA) slashed reimbursement for diagnostic imaging centers by placing a cap on technical-component payments from Medicare for non-hospital imaging services beginning in January 2007.

As the new year rolls in, were due to have a new healthcare reform planas well as an increase in the federal debt ceiling. My hope is the former brings good news for patients and the fiscal health of healthcare; the latter only means bad news.