National variation in the delivery of radiation oncology procedures in the non-facility-based setting.

Purpose: Though utilization of medical procedures has been shown to vary considerably across the United States, similar efforts to characterize variation in the delivery of radiation therapy (RT) procedures have not been forthcoming. Our aim was to characterize variation in the delivery of common RT procedures in the Medicare population. We hypothesized that delivery would vary significantly based on provider characteristics.

Provider-Level Variation in Treatment Planning of Radiation Oncology Procedures in the United States.

Purpose: Variation in the use of radiation oncology procedures and technologies is poorly characterized. We sought to identify associations between the treatment planning codes used to bill for radiotherapy procedures and the demographic characteristics of the radiation oncologists submitting them.

Methods: The Physician and Other Supplier Public Use File was linked to the Physician Compare database by using the physician National Provider Identifier for the year 2016.

Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing Comparison of CT-Guided Versus MR-Guided SBRT.

Purpose: Magnetic resonance-guided radiation therapy (MRgRT) has recently become commercially available, offering the opportunity to accurately image and target moving tumors as compared with computed tomography-guided radiation therapy (CTgRT) systems. However, the costs of delivering care with these 2 modalities remain poorly described. With localized unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma as an example, we were able to use time-driven activity-based costing to determine the cost of treatment on linear accelerators with CTgRT compared with MRgRT.