Strategies for managing imaging utilization.

Imaging represents a substantial and growing portion of the costs of American health care. When performed correctly and for the right reasons, medical imaging facilitates quality medical care that brings value to both patients and payers. When used incorrectly because of inappropriate economic incentives, unnecessary patient demands, or provider concerns for medical-legal risk, imaging costs can increase without increasing diagnostic yields.

The ACR Managed Care Committee: focusing private payers on radiology issues.

The ACR Managed Care/Private Payer Relations Committee is an important committee of the ACR Commission on Economics. This report reviews the committee's mission, structure, and processes and some of its current recommendations to ACR membership. The development of and participation in radiology advisory committees is a vital strategy in this process.

Agreement between surgeons and an independent panel with respect to surgical site fusion after single-level anterior cervical spine surgery: a prospective, multicenter study.

Study Design: Prospective multicenter cohort study.

Objective: To assess the: (1) agreement between surgeon and independent review of fusion after single-level anterior cervical decompression and fusion, and (2) influence of surgeon impression of patient status on agreement.

Summary Of Background Data: Failure to achieve fusion can lead to poor functional outcome.