From the June 2015 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
Welcome to your June issue of HealthCare Business News! This month we’re presenting you with our annual nuclear medicine issue. This issue is an interesting one each year due to the place molecular imaging holds in health care. While nearly all sectors of health care are facing big challenges, mostly due to reimbursement, nuclear medicine probably faces some of the biggest challenges. In part, it’s sharing the same pain points as the rest of health care as the field tries to get its piece of the diminished reimbursement pie, but the sector has a slight public image problem to contend with as well.
The public still seems to be suspicious of anything with dose involved. So that means nuclear medicine has to balance reimbursement battles with making strides in the PR realm, although really, one may follow the other, with good PR lending a hand in getting better reimbursement.
However, it may be possible for nuclear medicine to have its cake (or pie in this case) and eat it too. Yossi Srour’s article in this month’s Cost Containment Corner (p. 29) explores ways that health care professionals may just be able to lower the cost of nuclear medicine-based procedures while improving patient safety via lower dose.
Meanwhile, I caught up with SNMMI’s president Dr. Hossein Jadvar to hear about some of the good work the society is doing to advance the cause (p. 40). Jadvar’s background has given him a unique perspective that seems to have served him well during his time as president.
This year’s issue is the first where we feature the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology. For this inaugural year, I’ve interviewed current president, Dr. David Wolinsky, to learn about the association and to get an idea of its future course (p. 44). Wayne Webster, a long time contributor, has returned with the article, “Can a ‘lead-from-behind’ strategy advance nuclear medicine?” that starts on page 48. If you’re familiar with Wayne, you’ll know it’s worth the read to get an unflinching opinion and a thought-provoking take on the state of nuclear medicine today. If you’re not familiar with Wayne, the points I just highlighted should convince you to flip just over 40 pages ahead to see what he has to say.
We also revisit a topic we’ve touched on for years. This may be the last time you hear about the technetium supply for a while. The fine details can be found in the feature story by Gus Iversen (p. 52). Speaking of Gus, I’d like to take a bit of ink to congratulate him on being appointed our new online news editor. Gus has done a great job and has been a great asset to our news organization and the company as a whole, and I believe he’s going to do a great job in his new role.
Until next issue!
Sean Ruck
Editor-in-Chief
sruck@dotmed.com
DOTmed HealthCare Business News
