Practice Management

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Good morning!

At our main hospital contract, cardiologists are just beginning to read Cardiac MRI in 2019.  The hospital has requested, and we obviously feel it is appropriate, to provide overreads on these studies for images captured outside the heart.  Question for those with a similar scenario is whether you have requested a fee from your hospital to perform these overreads, and if so, what was your methodology to come to a fair rate?  It seems excessive to charge the equivalent of the CPT level fee to the hospital.  Would like to know how others have addressed this if it has come up.  We want to make sure we are compliant from a stark perspective, etc.

Thank you,
Josh

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Joshua Dorsey
Chief Executive Officer
Radiology Associates of Northern Kentucky
Crestview Hills KY
614-284-1597
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Original Message------

​​
Good morning!

At our main hospital contract, cardiologists are just beginning to read Cardiac MRI in 2019.  The hospital has requested, and we obviously feel it is appropriate, to provide overreads on these studies for images captured outside the heart.  Question for those with a similar scenario is whether you have requested a fee from your hospital to perform these overreads, and if so, what was your methodology to come to a fair rate?  It seems excessive to charge the equivalent of the CPT level fee to the hospital.  Would like to know how others have addressed this if it has come up.  We want to make sure we are compliant from a stark perspective, etc.

Thank you,
Josh

------------------------------
Joshua Dorsey
Chief Executive Officer
Radiology Associates of Northern Kentucky
Crestview Hills KY
614-284-1597
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We provide an overread of the Cardiac MRI studies.  The reading cardiologist bills the patient directly and we have a contract with the hospital to pay us a flat fee for each study we overread. 

Feel free to email me with any additional questions.




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Billie Slinde
Business Manager
Gainesville Radiology Group
Buford GA
(678) 343-0561
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-01-2019 10:04
From: Jay Smith
Subject: Cardiac MRI overread fee

Josh,

While we cannot discuss fees, I can give you some insight how we handled this exact issue.  Although our hospital initially requested that we likewise provide an overread of only the images outside the heart, we explained that we are ultimately responsible for all images of the cardiac MRI and all incidental findings. 

As a result, we will need to charge our normal fee. We were not going to charge a lower fee to our hospital (than for our regular patients) for a full interpretation of the MRI.

Furthermore, we said we are qualified to read all of the images while the cardiologists are only qualified to read the images of the heart.  After some meetings and further discussion, our cardiologists gave up and allowed us to continue reading 100% of the cardiac MRI exams. 

Please contact me via email or at 417-894-0878 if you have any questions. Thanks and have a wonderful day. 

Jay Smith, CPA, MBA 

Executive Director

Litton & Giddings Radiological Associates, P.C. 

P.O. Box 14049

Springfield, MO 65814 

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Original Message------

​​
Good morning!

At our main hospital contract, cardiologists are just beginning to read Cardiac MRI in 2019.  The hospital has requested, and we obviously feel it is appropriate, to provide overreads on these studies for images captured outside the heart.  Question for those with a similar scenario is whether you have requested a fee from your hospital to perform these overreads, and if so, what was your methodology to come to a fair rate?  It seems excessive to charge the equivalent of the CPT level fee to the hospital.  Would like to know how others have addressed this if it has come up.  We want to make sure we are compliant from a stark perspective, etc.

Thank you,
Josh

------------------------------
Joshua Dorsey
Chief Executive Officer
Radiology Associates of Northern Kentucky
Crestview Hills KY
614-284-1597
------------------------------