Dear Imaging Center Insider,
The battle for market share among U.S. diagnostic imaging centers has reached the boiling point. The American College of Cardiology and the American College of Radiology are at loggerheads over who can offer imaging services. Payors are considering, and in some cases implementing, restrictions for diagnostic imaging reimbursement on the basis of facility personnel and modalities.
Earlier this year, an antitrust suit brought by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Montana, among others, was settled by Montana-based Missoula Radiology, an independent radiology group. And this month, the latest skirmish in the freestanding diagnostic imaging center wars took place in Portland, OR.
Providence Health System in Portland recently took steps to ensure that the diagnostic imaging business of its provider panel would be conducted within its own facilities by announcing the termination of its preferred-provider contract with Portland-based EPIC Imaging and Body Imaging Radiology on May 1.
The move sparked a lawsuit from EPIC and Body Imaging, and the two sides have been trading charges ever since. The dispute goes to the heart of the struggle over who controls patients, a tension that is occurring in other regions across the U.S.
For more about this breaking story, click here. As an AuntMinnie.com Imaging Center Insider, you have access to the article before it is published for the rest of our members.
If you have a comment or report to share about any aspect of diagnostic imaging center practice, management, administration, regulation, or financing, please contact me at [email protected]. I look forward to hearing from you.
