Researchers from American College of Radiology Detail New Studies and Findings in the Area of Managed Care (A Claims-based Method for Identification and Characterization of Practicing Interventional Radiologists): Managed Care

2024 JUL 05 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Health Policy and Law Daily -- Current study results on Managed Care have been published. According to news reporting originating in Reston, Virginia, by NewsRx journalists, research stated, “To propose a research method for identifying ‘practicing interventional radiologists’ using 2 national claims data sets. The 2015-2019 100% Medicare Part B data and 2015-2019 private insurance claims from Optum’s Clinformatics Data Mart (CDM) database were used to rank -order radiologists’ interventional radiology (IR)-related work as a percentage of total billed work relative value units (RVUs).”

Financial support for this research came from Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR) Workforce Research Division.

The news reporters obtained a quote from the research from the American College of Radiology, “Characteristics were analyzed at various threshold percentages. External validation used Medicare self-designated specialty with Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR) membership records; Youden index evaluated sensitivity and specificity. Multivariate logistic regression assessed practicing IR characteristics. In the Medicare data, above a 10% IR-related work threshold, only 23.8% of selected practicing interventional radiologists were designated as interventional radiologists; above 50% and 90% thresholds, this percentage increased to 42.0% and 47.5%, respectively. The mean percentage of IR-related work among practicing interventional radiologists was 45%, 84%, and 96% of total work RVUs for the 10%, 50%, and 90% thresholds, respectively. At these thresholds, the CDM practicing interventional radiologists included 21.2%, 35.2%, and 38.4% designated interventional radiologists, and evaluation and management services comprised relatively more total work RVUs. Practicing interventional radiologists were more likely to be males, metropolitan, and earlier in their careers than other radiologists at all thresholds. Most radiologists performing IR-related work are designated in claims data as diagnostic radiologists, indicating insufficiency of specialty designation for IR identification.”

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “The proposed method to identify practicing interventional radiologists by percent IR-related work effort could improve generalizability and comparability across claims-based IR studies.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: A Claims-based Method for Identification and Characterization of Practicing Interventional Radiologists. Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology, 2024;35(6). Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology can be contacted at: Elsevier Science Inc, Ste 800, 230 Park Ave, New York, NY 10169, USA.

Our news correspondents report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Mikki D. Waid, American College of Radiology, Harvey L Neiman Hlth Policy Res Inst, 1891 Preston Wh Dr, Reston, VA 20191, United States. Additional authors for this research include Elizabeth Y. Rula, C. Matthew Hawkins, Laura Findeiss and Raymond Liu.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvir.2024.02.020. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

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