The Moreton Lecture: Choices faced by radiology in the era of accountable health care.

Abstract

If the United States is to address its overall economic challenges, the rate of growth of health care costs must be restrained. For the next decade, physicians should expect that the principal focus of health policy will be on cost reduction, with a particular emphasis on shifting the business model from one in which physicians and hospitals are rewarded for volume to a model in which they are accountable for value. To succeed in this new model, doctors will need to reduce overuse (driven primarily by overcapacity), eliminate the costs of preventable complications, and trim prices for many services. As radiologists (who are squarely in the center of these issues) face this future, they should take a leadership stance, help create effective accountable care systems, and set high aims for improvement. The alternatives--lapsing into victimhood, ceding design and leadership of accountable care to outside forces, and aiming for what is merely passable--are neither attractive nor professional.