In a nutshell (doesn't do it justice but here it goes):
Imaging costs are growing across the United States. In two years, spending on MRIs, mammograms and other imaging tests grew by at least $214 million in Massachusetts. Obviously, this fueled a dramatic rise in the cost of outpatient care.
Consultants hired by the state found that the cost of imaging for privately insured residents increased 20 percent between 2006 and 2008, to $1.2 billion, as doctors ordered more scans and X-rays and hospitals demanded higher prices.
In Massachusetts, they found that about half of the increased spending on imaging was the result of higher prices, either hospitals charging more for the same kind of scan or substituting a more costly test, such as a CT scan, for a less expensive one, such as a standard X-ray.
Noteworthy: Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, the state's largest insurer, said the insurer pays an average $700 for an MRI in a freestanding clinic, but twice that much at a hospital.
Rick Weisblatt - senior vice president for health services at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, one of the state's largest insurers - said some hospitals have been able to increase the number of scans they do through electronic medical records, which prompt doctors to send patients to the hospital or a satellite clinic, as opposed to an unaffiliated imaging center. When a test is done at the hospital, the results automatically become part of the patient's electronic record, a feature many doctors like because it improves coordination of care.
Source: Liz Kowalczyk, Pricey Imaging Pushes Up Health Costs, Boston Globe (March 11, 2010) (available here)
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