Whitney Palmer

Why Radiologists Should Care About Clinical Decision Support

Published on the Dec. 24, 2014 DiagnosticImaging.com website

By Whitney L.J. Howell

CHICAGO — The buzz about clinical decision support and the need for appropriateness guidelines isn’t new, but implementing and using such tools correctly will soon become even more critical.

According to industry experts at this year’s Radiological Society of North America annual meeting, if your referring physicians don’t master their clinical decision support (CDS) and use it consistently, it’s going to cost the radiologists money.

As of Jan. 1, 2017, said Ramin Khorasani, MD, vice chair of the Brigham & Women’s Hospital radiology department, under the Protecting Access to Medicare Act, radiologists won’t be paid for outpatient, non-emergent services rendered if their claims don’t include a number that proves the referring physician consulted a CDS tool.

But it still isn’t clear how radiology can best teach other providers about diagnostic imaging appropriateness. A recent pilot initiative, the Medicare Imaging Demonstration (MID), showed some improvement in how referring physicians prescribed imaging, but many doctors and surgeons reported dissatisfaction with the CDS software.

To read the article in its entirety at its original location: http://www.diagnosticimaging.com/rsna-2014/why-radiologists-should-care-about-clinical-decision-support

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