How Technology Can Simplify Radiology Mergers and Acquisitions 

In recent years, there has been a significant uptick in mergers and acquisitions in the radiology space. According to a recent article from Radiology Business, nearly 3,500 physician practices that provide radiology services disappeared from the Medicare Provider Data Log between 2015 and 2022.

Of the associated physicians from these disappearing practices, 46% of them moved to a large multispecialty group. This trend reflects the state of the radiology practice landscape, which is increasingly trending toward large radiology groups, with a 349% increase in practices that employ over 100 radiology professionals in the past decade.

So, what’s driving this trend? Healthcare valuation and consulting firm Healthcare Appraisers (recently acquired by Stout) attributes this trend to several factors.

1. Benefits of scale like higher collections per radiologist, more hospital contracts, more geographical reach, and higher procedure volume
2. Volume shift to non-hospital settings
3. Changing reimbursement models
4. New technology like telemedicine and artificial intelligence
5. Rising number of large consolidators like RadPartners, Envision, and US Radiology Specialists

Amid these changes, radiology groups face several hurdles. Integrating different systems, maintaining data integrity, and ensuring consistent workflow can be daunting. This is where solutions, such as InteleOrchestrator and InteleOne, come into play. Designed to streamline and automate workflows, these solutions address many of the complexities associated with M&A, providing a unified platform for seamless integration and improved operational efficiency.

M&A Challenges

Unifying disparate radiology practices during mergers and acquisitions presents a multitude of challenges. These include operational, financial, technical, compliance, and workplace-culture issues.

1. Integration of Systems and Workflows
   • Technical Compatibility – Different groups often use varied Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS), Radiology Information Systems (RIS), and Electronic Health Records (EHR). Integrating these disparate systems can be complex, slow, and costly.
   • Workflow Discrepancies – Each group may have unique workflows and protocols. Harmonizing these processes to ensure consistent and efficient operations can be challenging.
2. Data Management and Security
   • Data Migration – Ensuring accurate and complete migration of patient data, imaging studies, and other critical information is a significant challenge.
   • PHI Security – Maintaining the security and privacy of Protected Health Information (PHI) during and after the integration process is crucial. Any lapses can lead to compliance issues and potential legal ramifications.
3. Cultural Integration
   • Organizational Culture – Each group may have its own organizational culture and management style. Aligning these cultures and ensuring a smooth transition can be difficult.
   • Staff Adaptation – Employees may face uncertainty and stress during the transition period. Ensuring staff morale and retention is essential for a successful merger.
4. Operational Efficiency
   • Consistency in Service Delivery – Maintaining the quality and consistency of radiological services during the integration period can be challenging.
   • Optimization of Resources – Efficiently integrating and optimizing human and technological resources from both entities to avoid redundancies and ensure smooth operations.
5. Regulatory and Compliance Issues
   • Compliance with Regulations – Ensuring that the merged entity complies with all relevant local, state, and federal regulations, including those specific to radiology and healthcare, is critical.
   • Licensing and Accreditation – Addressing any differences in licensing and accreditation requirements between the merging entities.
6. Financial Management
   • Cost Management – Managing the costs associated with the merger, including those related to system integration, data migration, and training, is essential.
   • Revenue Cycle Integration – Harmonizing billing and revenue cycle management processes to ensure financial stability and efficiency.
7. Patient Care Continuity
   • Maintaining Care Standards – Ensuring that patient care standards are maintained or improved during the transition period. Effectively communicating these changes to patients helps maintain their trust and ensure continuity of care.

Addressing these multifaceted challenges requires strategic planning, robust technology solutions, and effective change management practices. This is where technology such as Intelerad’s solutions come into play, providing essential support for radiology practices navigating the complexities of M&A.

How Intelerad Solutions Provide Support

Problems like these require dynamic and adaptable solutions, specifically ones that can support and integrate multiple system types. Intelerad products InteleOrchestrator and InteleOne can significantly ease these challenges, making the merger process more straightforward and simple.

InteleOrchestrator tackles integration, workflow, data management, and operational issues with ease.

1. Unified Workflow Management and Flexible Integration
   • InteleOrchestrator streamlines and automates workflows, ensuring that disparate systems and processes from the merging entities are harmonized efficiently. It is designed to integrate with various PACS, RIS, and EHR systems, facilitating seamless interoperability and data exchange across the newly combined entity. This reduces manual intervention and errors for smoother operations.
2. Optimized Resource Utilization and Smart Workflow Management
   • By orchestrating tasks and workflows, InteleOrchestrator helps in optimizing the use of human and technological resources, reducing redundancies, prioritizing the highest-acuity cases, improving efficiency, and balancing load metrics for a fair distribution of work among clinicians.
3. Limitless Scalability
   • InteleOrchestrator can scale according to the needs of the merged entity, accommodating volume growth, multiple locations, various Service-Level Agreements (SLA), and more in operational demands.

InteleOne targets access and continuity so that no patient is left behind.

1. Real-Time Unified Access to Patient Data
   • InteleOne provides a single, real-time, access point for radiologists to view and interpret imaging studies instantly from multiple PACS and EHR systems, reducing the need for multiple logins and facilitating timely and informed decision-making.
2. Operational Consistency
   • InteleOne supports the standardization of imaging and reporting protocols across the merged entity, ensuring consistency in service delivery and diagnostic quality.
3. Continuity of Care
   • With InteleOne, patient records and imaging studies are continuously accessible, ensuring that there is no disruption in patient care during the transition period.

Both InteleOrchestrator and InteleOne provide tools and features that support change management initiatives, helping staff adapt to new systems and workflows more easily.

By leveraging these solutions together, radiology reading groups can navigate the complexities of M&A with greater ease, ensuring a smooth transition, enhanced operational efficiency, and continued high standards of patient care.

Real World Example – Columbus Radiology and InteleOrchestrator

Columbus Radiology Corporation (CRC), a leading subspecialty radiology group, faced significant challenges due to rapid growth and the complexity of integrating various systems across multiple sites. To address these issues, CRC implemented InteleOrchestrator. This solution provided a unified workflow, integrating eight different dictation systems and multiple PACS without requiring client sites to change their processes. The result was a 50% increase in efficiency, streamlined operations, and improved patient care continuity.

The ability to dynamically organize reading tasks based on radiologist subspecialty, credentials, workload, location, and availability allowed CRC to maintain high standards of service while expanding its client base. The Productivity Gauge feature enables real-time workload balancing, ensuring fair distribution of work for optimal productivity. Seamless integration and operational consistency were crucial at this complicated time for CRC, enabling them to manage their rapid growth effectively and continue providing high-quality, uninterrupted, radiological services.

By leveraging Intelerad’s InteleOrchestrator, CRC not only overcame the challenges of system integration and workflow management but also fostered a more harmonious work environment, demonstrating the product’s capability to support dynamic and growing radiology practices through complex M&A processes.

For more details, you can read the full case study here.

Conclusion

Navigating the complexities of radiology group mergers and acquisitions requires robust and flexible solutions. Intelerad’s InteleOrchestrator and InteleOne provide exactly that, offering seamless integration, automated workflows, and real-time access to patient data. These tools ensure operational efficiency, enhance data management, and maintain continuity of patient care, making them invaluable during the M&A process.

To see these powerful features in action, check out InteleOrchestrator and InteleOne, or book a demo to experience firsthand how these solutions can benefit your practice.