March 14, 2018
Unique Beneficiaries & Radiology Characteristics
A new Harvey L. Neiman Health Policy Institute® study compares the number of unique Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries served by radiologists and other physicians and identifies characteristics of radiologists serving the most number of unique patients. The study is published in The Journal of American College of Radiology (JACR).
Rosenkrantz and his colleagues used Medicare Physician and Other Supplier Public Use Files to identify all physicians who provided services to Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries for the entirety of 2013. The average number of unique beneficiaries served was computed per specialty. The number of unique beneficiaries served was further stratified among the radiologists in terms of physician and practice characteristics.
“Linking physician and specialty-level summary claims data to a variety of other physician characteristics data sets, we found that radiologists, on average, serve more unique Medicare FFS beneficiaries than those of any other physician specialty group,” noted lead study author, professor and director of health policy in the department of radiology at NYU Langone Health and a Neiman Institute affiliate research fellow. “This observation may in part reflect the high-volume nature of most radiology practices, as well as the very large growth in imaging utilization in recent decades.”
Among 56 unique physician specialties, diagnostic radiologists on average served the most unique beneficiaries. Among radiologists, the number of unique beneficiaries served was higher for those who are males and generalists, and part of rural, smaller, Southern, and non-academic practices.
“The large number of unique beneficiaries served by radiologists highlights their important role in orchestrating patient care and their immense opportunities to expand the face of the specialty,” added senior author Richard Duszak, MD, FACR, professor and vice chair for health policy and practice in the department of radiology and imaging sciences at Emory University and senior affiliate research fellow at the Neiman Institute. “An understanding of which radiologists serve the largest number of unique patients may help radiology practices target patient engagement and other Imaging 3.0™ efforts.”
To obtain a copy of the JACR study or to arrange an interview with a Neiman Institute spokesperson, contact Nichole Gay at (703) 648-1665 or ngay@neimanhpi.org.
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About the Harvey L. Neiman Health Policy Institute
The Harvey L. Neiman Health Policy Institute is one of the nation’s leading medical imaging socioeconomic research organizations. The Neiman Institute studies the role and value of radiology and radiologists in evolving health care delivery and payment systems and the impact of medical imaging on the cost, quality, safety and efficiency of health care. Visit us at www.neimanhpi.org and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.