Dispatches April 2024

Federal Agencies Launch Joint Inquiry into Private Equity in Healthcare
HPI Researchers Identify ‘Hidden’ Interventional Radiologists in Data
New Legislation Offers Partial Relief in Medicare Reimbursement for Radiology
New Library Highlights Core Privileging for Image-Guided Procedures

Federal Agencies Launch Joint Inquiry into Private Equity in Healthcare

With private equity and radiology increasingly occupying the same conversations around the future of the specialty’s landscape, the trending equity-backed business model has come under scrutiny from federal regulators who want to keep an eye on corporate interests in healthcare. Three federal government agencies announced a joint inquiry March 5 into what a press release called “private-equity and other corporations’ increasing control over healthcare.”

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division and HHS jointly launched the cross-government inquiry “to understand how certain healthcare market transactions may increase consolidation and generate profits for firms while threatening patients’ health, workers’ safety, quality of care, and affordable healthcare for patients and taxpayers,” the FTC press release said. The agencies are asking for public comment no later than May 6, 2024.

Read the formal request for information and browse all comments.

HPI Researchers Identify ‘Hidden’ Interventional Radiologists in Data

A new study by the Harvey L. Neiman Health Policy Institute^® (NHPI), in partnership with the Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR), found that 76% of interventional radiologists using a new research method were mislabeled as diagnostic radiologist in Medicare data. That means IRs are largely unidentifiable in healthcare claims data, which is important because it is used for population health and health-services research, according to an NHPI press release.

“This gap hinders researchers’ ability to study the value of interventional radiology in healthcare at a population scale,” says one of the study’s authors, C. Matthew Hawkins, MD, professor of radiology and imaging sciences at Emory University School of Medicine.

Read the entire study in the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology.

New Legislation Offers Partial Relief in Medicare Reimbursement for Radiology

President Joe Biden signed a $460 billion spending bill into law March 9 that resulted in partially scaling back the radiology Medicare pay cut that occurred on Jan. 1. The ACR reports that the bill eliminated 1.68% from the 3.37% cut to the Conversion Factor, leading to a Conversion Factor that’s roughly 1.69% below the 2023 number. Lawmakers were commended by imaging advocacy groups for partly addressing this concern, but they also hope for long-term Medicare payment reform.

Congress and members of the RBMA’s Radiology Patient Action Network are expected to discuss possible long-term solutions, such as tying reimbursement to an inflation index that more appropriately reflects radiology’s operating costs and exempting low-cost screening services.

Read the full article.

New Library Highlights Core Privileging for Image-Guided Procedures

To assist diagnostic and interventional radiologists in their establishment of the core privileging process, the ACR has created a Library of Core Privileging for Image-Guided Procedures, which includes an introductory guide on core privileging and sample privileging templates. Privileges to practice medicine within particular areas of specialization are granted by hospitals or healthcare systems to physicians who are appropriately credentialed, according to an introductory document in the library. Regulation of the credentialing process varies from state to state. Medical education and training and board certification are often used for both credentialing and privileging. At a given hospital or other healthcare facility, a physician may be credentialed but not privileged.

The library provides current example documents from a wide variety of practice settings, including:

Several large university practices
A multispecialty clinic
A small community/rural referral hospital

Support a rigorous privileging process in your practice and save time for both radiologists and the medical staff credential office by implementing these core privileges today.

Author

Alexander Utano associate editor, ACR Press