TH‐B‐201C‐01: Nuclear Medicine Accreditation Acceptance Testing and Annual Surveys

• Published in: Medical Physics 2010-06, Vol.37 (6), p.3449-3449
• Main Author: Botti, J
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Medical image quality; Medical imaging; Nuclear medicine imaging; Physicists; Quality assurance; Testing procedures
• ISSN: 0094-2405; 2473-4209
• DOI: 10.1118/1.3469472

With the passing of the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act (MIPPA) MIPPA requires facilities that are billing for these services under Medicare B to be accredited by January 1 2012. CMS has recognized the American College of Radiology the Intersocietal Accreditation Commission and the Joint Commission as the three organizations approved for accrediting facilities. This talk will focus primarily on understanding the ACR requirements and procedures for accreditation of (PET and Nuclear Medicine imaging services) with a focus on the Physicist's role in the process Accreditation by the ACR requires both Acceptance testing and Annual performance testing be performed by a qualified individual. The procedures for performing these tests will be reviewed with a focus on avoiding many of the common pitfalls that may cause facilities to fail the process. The recently modified ACR procedures for acquiring and submitting Quality Control images for review will be discussed. Other areas that will be covered include the following: 1. Physicist Personnel Qualifications 2. Quality Control Requirements 3. ACR review of clinical and phantom images Learning Objectives: 1. Understand common pitfalls associated with annual and acceptance testing. 2. Understand the personnel qualifications for physicists. 3. Understand the ACR protocol for acquiring and submission of QC images. Conflict of Interest: The company that I work for conducts annual performance testing of Nuclear Medicine equipment for facilities in support of ACR accreditation. I am a physics reviewer for the American College of Radiology. I do not speak on behalf American College of Radiology.