09/08/2016    Kim Antol

The Truth Regarding Medicare and CR vs. DR

It has been a hot topic lately with a lot of
misinformation being disseminated. Beginning in
2017, only if you are still using film…Medicare
will be deducting 20% from reimbursements. The
proposed 7% payment reduction against CR goes
into effect in 2018, (not 2017 as everyone
seems to believe), and only involves Medicare,
and not until 2023 (7 years from now) proposed
to 10%. However the estimated loss in revenue
(especially as x-ray reimbursements are
continually being lowered to $20 or less) means
just a $1.40 reduction, and will in no way
cover the additional expense for a small office
to convert to DR.

A quality DR system is much more costly with
expensive on-site installation charges
requiring modification to your existing x-ray
by a state certified technician, and annual
calibration with support fees of $1,000 -
$3,000 per year. It will take over 10,000
Medicare images to match the expense of a DR
system vs. CR.

Many who have purchased a DR in the past have
gradually seen their image quality decrease
with continued x-ray radiation, requiring
regular expensive annual re-calibration and
finding themselves in a situation where they
again need to upgrade or replace their system
within as early as 5 years.

The goal of our government is to encourage the
reduction of chemical waste from conventional
film and chemistry. CR’s main ingredient is
phosphorous (which gives over 100,000 images
before any degradation can be noticed and is
closest to film image quality) and is a
valuable element which can be recycled.

However, as happens all the time when a new
“bill” is presented to Congress, a leading DR
manufacturer was able to lobby and get CR
included in the “Consolidated Appropriations
Act of 2016” (a 2009-page document). But as
happened with the hated 2.3% Medical Device
Tax, hopefully smarter heads will prevail and
this regulation will be rescinded before it
goes into effect in 2018.

Kim Antol, Sigma Digital X-Ray

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