A. Baadh

The Relative Value Unit: History, Current Use, and Controversies

The relative value unit (RVU) is an important measuring tool for the work performed by physicians, and is currently used in the United States to calculate physician reimbursement. An understanding of radiology RVUs and current procedural terminology codes is important for radiologists, trainees, radiology managers, and administrators, as this knowledge would help them to understand better their current productivity and reimbursement, as well as controversies regarding reimbursement, and permit them to adapt to reimbursement changes that may occur in the future. This article reviews the components of the RVU and how radiology payment is calculated, highlights trends in RVUs and resultant payment for diagnostic and therapeutic imaging and examinations, and discusses current issues involving RVU and current procedural terminology codes.

IR and the Sunshine Act: Two-Year Analysis of the Open Payments Database and Comparison with Related Specialties

PURPOSE To characterize medical industry-based payments made to US-based interventional radiology (IR) physicians, identify trends in compensation, and compare their payment profile with those of other related specialties, including vascular surgery (VS) and interventional cardiology (IC). Payments made to orthopedic surgery (OS) physicians are reported as a historical control. MATERIALS AND METHODS For each group, the total payment number, amount, and mean and median numbers and amounts were calculated. The data were then reanalyzed after correcting for statistical outliers. For IR, VS, and IC, leading industry sponsors, payment amount, and differences in payments from 2013 to 2014 were highlighted. Payments to IR were grouped by category and geographic location. The Kruskal-Wallis test was used for statistical analysis. RESULTS A total of

Combating the Health Risks of Sedentary Behavior in the Contemporary Radiology Reading Room

26,857,622 went to 1,831 IR physicians, representing 70.9% of active IR physicians, and the corrected mean payment was

Intraosseous Vascular Access in Radiology: Review of Clinical Status

597 ± 832.2 (standard deviation). The respective values were

Utilization of the track embolization technique to improve the safety of percutaneous lung biopsy and/or fiducial marker placement ☆,☆☆

18,861,041, 3,383, 80.6%, and

Radiology-pathology conference: primary peritoneal mesothelioma☆

851.59 for VS;

A trip down memory lane: The ultimate inferior vena cava filter.

32,008,213, 7,939, 78.6%, and

Nonamyloid tumoral light-chain-deposition disease (aggregoma) of the paraspinal region.

417.16 for IC; and

A Guide to Percutaneous Cryoablation of Renal Masses in Difficult Anatomic Locations

357,528,020, 21,829, 77.8%, and

Intraarterial lung biopsy with myocardial forceps.

598.48 for OS. OS had the largest number of payments (295,465 vs 24,246 for IR, 84,635 for VS, and 160,443 for IC) and greatest total payment amount. VS had a significantly higher corrected median payment amount (