Medicare Payments for Noninvasive Diagnostic Imaging Are Now Higher to Nonradiologist Physicians Than to Radiologists

The growth in fee-for-service payments to nonradiologists for NDI was considerably more rapid than the growth for radiologists between 1998 and 2006. Then, by the end of 2008, 2 years after the implementation of the Deficit Reduction Act, steeper revenue losses had been experienced by radiologists. The result was that by 2008, overall Medicare fee-for-service payments for NDI were 4% higher to nonradiologists than they were to radiologists.