Use of medical imaging in the Medicare system is highest in the first half of each year, according to a study published online January 28 in the Journal of the American College of Radiology.
The finding has implications regarding efforts under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) to more precisely track utilization for individual physicians, said researchers from the Harvey L. Neiman Health Policy Institute (HPI) in a statement.
A team led by Dr. Andrew Rosenkrantz of NYU Langone Medical Center used data from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to identify imaging events per 1,000 Medicare beneficiaries on a quarterly basis across the U.S. between 2008 and 2014.
In addition to the finding that mean and median imaging utilization were highest in the first six months of each year, Rosenkrantz and colleagues determined that imaging use in the Medicare population increased progressively with increasing patient comorbidities. The researchers also discovered that utilization was highest in those with dual Medicaid eligibility and in those on Medicare due to end-stage renal disease.
"Our findings indicate that a wide range of patient factors -- most outside of radiologists' control -- heavily influence such variation," Rosenkrantz said. "Thus, these factors will need to be properly considered in order to reliably define the risk level of any individual physician's patient panel."
