DRA 2005: The brave new world

The Deficit Reduction Act (DRA) of 2005 was signed into law to achieve 39 billion dollars in reductions from federal spending programs, 11 billion dollars from Medicare and Medicaid alone. Conservative estimates indicate that imaging alone accounts for 2.8 billion dollars of that amount. As of the writing of this article, both houses of Congress were reviewing bills with bipartisan support aimed at defusing, at least temporarily, the negative impact of the DRA; however, these bills do not affect the law in totality. Dealing with the changes that the DRA will force upon outpatient imaging practices will require all parties involved in outpatient imaging--physicians, administrators, and staff alike--to make smart, efficient, but practical changes in operational models to effectively survive in this new legislatively mandated environment.