Imaging coalition says White House supports radiology benefit managers

Believing that the Obama administration is favoring third-party radiology benefit managers over clinical decision support to control imaging utilization, a group of health IT supporters are developing a white paper to show why they think CDS is a better way to go.

The Imaging e-Ordering Coalition, formed in June 2009 to reduce unnecessary diagnostic imaging tests, successfully lobbied Congress to remove RBM-related language from the health insurance reform bill that passed in March. But a meeting that the Center for Diagnostic Imaging Institute--a founding member of the coalition--had with the White House Office of Management and Budget and some congressional staffers in late April reportedly raised concerns that the prior authorization that benefit management usually entails isn't dead yet.

Liz Quam, executive director of the Minneapolis-based Center for Diagnostic Imaging Institute, tells the publication Diagnostic Imaging that Keith Fontenot, OMB's health programs director, had been assured by RBMs that they could hold the line on imaging utilization. "We heard that from some other folks on [Capitol] Hill too," Quam said.

An OMB spokesman denied that Fontenot had expressed favoritism toward RBMs. "The administration supports, as part of an effort to digitize healthcare, technologies that assist healthcare providers by giving them the best information when they need it to make the best decisions possible with their patients," the spokesman said in a written statement provided to Diagnostic Imaging. 

Regardless, Quam scoffed at the notion that RBMs could keep utilization flat. "There is no way, if we're going to continue to have a vibrant, continuously progressing healthcare environment, that imaging services aren't going to expand," Quam said. "So if you're going to show me a flat line on utilization, that's dead on a human being and certainly it is in the imaging industry, too."

For more:
- have a look at this Diagnostic Imaging story

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