March 22, 2012

New in this Issue

AAPM Position Statement on Use of Bismuth Shielding for the Purpose of Dose Reduction in CT Scanning

AAPM reports

New Report Available Quality assurance for image-guided radiation therapy utilizing CT-based technologies: A report of the AAPM TG-179

New Report AvailableQuality assurance for nonradiographic radiotherapy localization and positioning systems: Report of Task Group 147

New Report Available The use and QA of biologically related models for treatment planning: Short report of the TG-166 of the therapy physics committee of the AAPM

congress

MedPAC Report to the Congress March 2012

International atomic emergy agency (IAEA)

The RPOP website has been updated

funding opportunities

AAPM Fellowship for Graduate Study in Medical Physics 2012 AAPM Fellowship for Graduate Study in Medical Physics

AAPM Support for Clinical Residency in Imaging Medical Physics 2012 - 2013 AAPM Support for Clinical Residency in Imaging Medical Physics

Medical Imaging

MedPAC verifies drop in imaging spending, utilization

Medicare

Medicare Correction Result in Updated Payment for 2012

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Meetings Calendar

Chapter Meetings: March 2012 - May 2012

2012 AAPM Spring Clinical MeetingAAPM Spring Clinical Meeting: Online Evaluation System Available

Webcast of the MonthWorld Congress on Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering: May 26 - 31, 2012, Beijing, China

2012 AAPM Summer School2012 AAPM Summer School - Medical Imaging Using Ionizing Radiation: Optimization of Dose and Image Quality-Registration and Housing Open; June 24-29, 2012

2012 AAPM Annual Meeting2012 AAPM Annual Meeting: Registration and Housing Open July 29 - August 2, 2012

AAPM Website Updates

AAPM releases an updated Lexicon of the different terms used for CT acquisition and reconstruction by different manufacturers

NIH hosts public meetings on May 1 in Chicago and May 3 in San Francisco as part of the strategic planning process for the Common Fund

Webcast of the Month Webcast of the Month: Educational Challenges in Medical Physics Research: Academic Research in a Post 2014 era

The NIH Early Career Reviewer (ECR) Program will help prepare you to participate in the NIH peer review process

Survey on ethics and professionalism in medical physics

Career Services & Committee Classifieds

Career Services Ads as of March 22, 2012

AAPM Committee Classifieds as of March 22, 2012

AAPM on LinkedIn

Follow AAPM HQ on Twitter

Congress

MedPAC Report to the Congress March 2012

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) is required to annually review Medicare payment policies and make recommendations to the Congress... [see full article]

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

The RPOP website has been updated as:

  1. New training material on radiation proctection for Doctors using flouroscopy outside radiology (Urologists, Gastroenterologists, Orthopedic surgeons etc.) Free Download
  2. New page on diagnostic reference levels in CT
  3. American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) issues a position statement on use of Bismuth shielding
  4. Greek Macedonian version of Posters on Radiation Protection in flouroscopy
  5. Newsletter or Networks:
  6. Latest literature

Medical Imaging

MedPAC verifies drop in imaging spending, utilization

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (PedPAC) acknowledged the recent downward trend in Medicare spending and utilization on medical imaging procedures in its annual March Report to Congress, a move applauded by the Medical Imaging and Technology Alliance (MITA)... [see full article]

Medicare

Medicare Corrections Result in Updated Payments for 2012

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently published Correction Notices that impacted 2012 Medicare payments to physicians, freestanding centers, hospital outpatient departments and ambulatory surgical centers.

Changes to Medicare Physician Fee Schedule: The Correction Notice included minor revisions to a few radiation oncology procedure codes. Specifically the technical components of CPT codes 77402, 77615, 77776 and 77787 decreased by 0.01 relative value unit (RVU) resulting in a slight change to the 2012 payment. The current conversion factor of $34.0376 will remain in place through the end of the year due to the recently passed legislation. Updated 2012 RVUs and payment rates are available on the AAPM website (see below for web address).

Changes to Hospital Outpatient Services and Ambulatory Surgical Center Payments:In the Correction Notice CMS reports that they discovered that the trim of unpaid lines was not applied correctly. CMS corrected the programming logic in the data process to apply the line item trim correctly and recalculated the median costs for each separately paid service using the claims that result from the correctly applied trim. This correction resulted in slight payment increases or decreases to all radiation oncology procedure APCs and slight decreases to all brachytherapy source APC payments.

The same correction also impacted payments for surgical procedures and ancillary services provided in ambulatory surgical centers.

Updated 2012 payments are available on the AAPM website

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