When a health insurance company denies a claim, most people complain to their friends and family and then accept it, arranging payment methods or even denying themselves a procedure that may save their life. However, one patient decided to fight back and challenge her insurance carrier.

An art critic once wrote, “If all women resembled those painted by Picasso, the Earth would be depopulated toward the end of the century.” The critic was speaking about Picasso’s “Woman in a Green Hat,” describing the model in the painting as “corpselike,” “greenish” and “formless.”

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 changed the healthcare IT landscape for providers by offering money in exchange for the adoption and implementation of electronic medical records (EMR). One year later, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) upped the ante with new regulations for privacy, accountable care and insurance coverage. The combination of the two acts has left most providers and provider organizations struggling to see the forest through the trees as the deadlines to comply with both acts draw ever closer.

Even for the most seasoned radiologists and hospital administrators, the rapid advances on new technology such as cloud storage, Web-based software and mobile apps may leave some wondering where to start when vetting healthcare IT vendors. For those who feel this description fits them, you are not alone; a session on this topic was packed solid during the 2014 Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) annual meeting in February.

Today, only 12 percent of breast cancers in the United States are treated with accelerated partial breast irradiation (APBI). Breast brachytherapy is a form of APBI that delivers radiation dose from within the breast and tumor cavity using a tiny radioactive pellet of iridium-192. The clinical benefits of this targeted approach to radiation delivery are clear — reduced radiation exposure to healthy tissue, better cosmetic results and fewer side effects, and allowing more future treatment options in the event of a recurrence or new primary cancer.

Radiation dose management has come to the forefront of healthcare concerns with both patients and providers advocating for measures that will decrease and manage exposure. Research has shown that medical imaging has doubled the public’s exposure to ionizing radiation since the 1980s, and while this statistic includes fluoroscopy, angiography, mammography and standard X-ray, computed tomography (CT) has contributed the majority of the dose increase.