The federal government, through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), will soon decide to cut payments to physicians who use and bill for medical imaging. Medical imaging is frequently used to screen and diagnose patients for a wide range of diseases including various cancers and heart diseases.
Obviously doctors and their advocates will not be pleased by this new move, as it cuts into the profitability and revenues they earn from using such technologies as MRIs and CT scans. Those siding with the doctors in this controversial move argue that such radiological technologies are a necessity in treating already-diagnosed cancer patients and that the proposed, drastic payment cuts may force them to offer fewer services and at worst, shut down some imaging-reliant practices.
The flipside of this argument, and the frame of view from which the U.S. government is presently looking at this issue, is that health care expenses are out of control and that medical imaging diagnostics and screens are potentially overused by doctors in order to generate greater fees. The government has proposed cutting up to 38% of the amount it pays to doctors participating in Medicare who use medical imaging equipment. Nearly one million doctors currently participate in Medicare.
Because of the various business and health interests in such a government move, the proposed cuts are likely to be hotly contested not only by affected doctors and related lobbies, but by business lobbies representing medical imaging equipment makers such as the large and powerful companies GE and Siemens.
The debate, however, does not concern the technology equipment itself, but rather its overuse and associated health care costs. For this reason, some propose the solution of having doctors follow proper use guidelines for imaging equipment in order to prevent overuse and unnecessary Medicare payments.
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