September 19, 2012 — Merge Healthcare Inc. announced that its board of directors has retained Allen & Company LLC, a New York-based investment bank, to assist in exploring and evaluating a broad range of strategic alternatives including, but not limited to, a sale of the company or a business combination.

September 19, 2012 — In response to criticism by physicians about the restrictiveness of conditions put forth by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for reimbursement for transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR), the American Society of Echocardiography (ASE) is emphasizing the importance of heart team quality and experience in ensuring positive patient outcomes.

September 18, 2012 — The new Image Gently campaign's “Back to Basics” initiative has developed online teaching materials, checklists and practice quality improvement projects to help providers strengthen radiation protection when performing X-ray examinations on children, particularly as technology shifts from standard screen-film X-ray to digital X-ray imaging.

September 18, 2012 — Inpatient hospital treatment accounts for the largest proportion of healthcare spending in the United States, with the use of diagnostic imaging services such as magnetic resonance images (MRIs) frequently implicated as the probable cause. A new analysis finds that the biggest expense may not be from imaging technology, but from supplies including medical devices, such as stents and artificial joints.

According to a study in the September issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology, overall noninvasive diagnostic imaging (NDI) costs to Medicare Part B dropped 21% from 2006 to 2010. The study reveals that medical imaging is not a driver of escalating Medicare costs.