Granted, this press release does come from industry, but it does make some very good points about a recent proposal about reimbursements for Medicare. Healthcare proposals have to be reasonable and deal with the real world, not the planet bean counters live on. The bottom line is that if physicians are underpaid, they will cease practice in an area and move, which will leave patients without local care. If physicians move and service is cut, that affects the whole healthcare system of an area.

This is an abbreviated press release from the Access to Medical Imaging Coalition:

This data demonstrates that imaging centers in rural areas operate equipment on average 48% of the time their offices are open. This is inconsistent with President Obama’s recent proposal to adopt a 95% imaging equipment use assumption across the board when calculating Medicare reimbursements. Under this proposal, physicians who operate at rates below 95% of the time their offices are open will be underpaid for their services.

The Radiology Business Management Association (RBMA) data, which studied 261 imaging machines in 46 centers, show that imaging equipment in rural regions of the country operates only 48% of the time an office is open, while equipment in non-rural areas operates 56% of the time a center is open for business. Neither rural nor urban non-hospital diagnostic imaging providers operate equipment at rates anywhere near the levels the President or MedPAC recommend the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) use to base reimbursements.

These cuts would adversely impact patients in rural areas in particular − where fewer providers serve larger geographic areas and more disparate patient populations − causing congestion/delays at the point of care, forcing physicians to scale back services, further reducing care options and making patients travel further to receive care.