Both the ACR and the SNM are celebrating the passage of H. R. 6331, the Medicare Improvement for Patients and Providers Act of 2008. Both houses of Congress garnered the necessary majorities to override a presidential veto of the act. The House overrode the veto by a margin of 383-41, while the tally in the Senate was 70-26. The bill ...

I have been moving from one apartment to another and just as I was opening the boxes and just getting settled in my new place the power went out. It stayed out for about 15 hours and people were complaining that they would need to throw out the food, especially since the temperature was in the high 90s. It was a relief to have the power back. You ...

As sonographers and vascular technologists, it is in our interest for the medical community (as well as the general public) to recognize the benefits of our examinations. This includes the potential and real benefits diagnostic sonography offers as compared to other more costly imaging modalities such as CT or MRI and/or modalities that utilize ...

When you look at some of the arguments for a national health care, our system is often compared unfavorably with the national health system in Canada. Generally, this is done by people who have never had to deal with that system first hand. Now it is true that many people benefit from their system, but a look at how many Canadians come over to the ...

Over on our March 14th Mammography Matters blog, Wanda Francisco discussed dealing with the questions of patients who wanted to know what they were seeing on the screens of the new digital mammogram machines . It seems that some of the digital mammography systems allow the monitors to face the patients and she wanted to know how mammographers ...

In this weeks top story Calming Fears, I discussed the difficulty that most people have in accurately assessing risks, sometimes fearing small risks, such as that of being near someone who has had radioiodine therapy, while dismissing larger risks, such as those of smoking. I also discussed the role media plays in sensationalizing ...

In the battle to get CMS to understand the value of diagnostic imaging, this month saw one gain, the decision not to limit CTA imaging, and one loss, a decision to continue national non-coverage of FDG PET for infection and inflammation imaging. Explaining this decision, the CMS cited lack of interest in the FDG PET imaging by both ...

  At first glance, the furor over reimbursement for CT angiography (CTA) may not seem to be something that concerns nuclear medicine technologists. After all, the CT experts often predict that CTA could replace some of the current myocardial perfusion scans that are the bread and butter of most nuclear medicine departments.  With ...

Nuclear medicine technologists are used to working with crystals, such as BGO, LSO, NaI and GSO, as scintillation materials to catch gamma and positron emissions. Soon, however, they might be working beside 4,600 karats of semi-precious garnets too.  This is the new scintillation material that is being used to create GE Healthcare's ...

  When PET/CT first came out, it looked like a great opportunity for expanding the job base for nuclear medicine technologists. When the CT only gave attenuation and some positional information, there were fewer problems with who could run the systems. Even then the SNM, ARRT, NMTCB and ASRT realized that there might be eventual problems ...