business
Cigna hires national radiology benefit manager
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted March 7, 2011
Philadelphia-based health plan Cigna has decided to contract with a single company as a contact for physicians ordering high-tech imaging and will add nuclear cardiology to the list of scans that require prior authorization.
MedSolutions, a radiology utilization manager based in Franklin, Tenn., will handle requests for imaging tests for all of Cigna's 11.4 million members, taking over territory handled by two other vendors and maintaining responsibility for the areas it already covered.
Alan Muney, MD, Cigna's senior vice president for total health and network, said the company believed it would be more efficient to use a single vendor. It chose MedSolutions in part because the company offers a predictive modeling tool that identifies physicians who always follow clinical guidelines so the company can grant those doctors automatic approval for imaging.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2011/03/07/bibf0307.htm.
