MT. LAUREL, NJ – USARAD.com, a radiologist-run and Joint Commission-accredited provider of outsourced radiology reading services, announced Monday the first-ever national quality assurance service to help imaging facilities achieve American College of Radiology accreditation.
The new USARAD.com Peer Review Program is open to individual radiologists, hospital radiology departments, imaging centers, IDTFs, mobile imaging providers and multi-specialty physician groups.
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ACR accreditation is now mandated by many payers, including Medicare. Radiologists certified by the American Board of Radiology after 2004 also can utilize this QA program to custom-tailor their individual Practice Quality Improvement projects required for the Maintenance of Certificate.
“Meeting full QA requirements is often beyond the reach of small and solo radiologist practices," said Mary Daubert, CAO of USARAD.com. "We have successfully implemented this program internally as well as with select clients and we are now offering it nationwide. The program was developed to be extremely cost effective and efficient and can be implemented in a matter of days.”
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With an existing national network of board-certified radiologists and advanced technology, USARAD.com possesses the infrastructure to offer this program on a national level, officials say. The program will use a random sampling of radiology reports and grade them on a six-point scale on various imaging and reporting parameters.
Additionally, board certified and fellowship-trained reviewing radiologists from USARAD.com will provide feedback on a reading radiologist’s style and depth of reporting as well as such medicolegal aspects as communication with referring physicians. This service will enhance the practice’s performance and benefit individual radiologists in measuring improvement on a quarterly or annual basis.
“The primary goals of the program include improvement in quality of interpretations, client satisfaction, communication with referring physicians, overall physician performance as well as reduction in errors," said Michael Yuz, MD, founder of USARAD.com. "Ultimately, this will make an important difference in patient care and enhance outcomes.”
