ACR accreditation and what it says about an imaging center

This page is for anyone having a scan, such as a mammogram, CT or MRI, who wants to know what American College of Radiology (ACR) accreditation means. It explains what ACR reviews, how to look up a facility, and what the seal cannot promise.

You may have noticed a gold seal on the wall at an imaging center. Or a line at the bottom of a letter about your mammogram. That is usually American College of Radiology accreditation.

It is easy to ignore. But it is one of the few pieces of quality information about a scan that you can look up yourself. It takes about two minutes, before you go.

ACR runs accreditation programs in eight areas:

• Breast ultrasound
• CT
• Mammography
• MRI
• Nuclear medicine and PET
• Radiation oncology
• Stereotactic breast biopsy
• Ultrasound

Notice that the list is by type of scan, not by hospital. This matters. A facility earns accreditation modality by modality. A center might be accredited for mammography and not for MRI. It may simply have never applied for the second one.

So the useful question is not "is this place accredited." It is "is this place accredited for the scan I am having."

ACR describes peer-reviewed imaging analysis conducted by qualified radiologists and medical physicists.

For mammography, the federal government adds its own layer. The FDA says a mammography facility must be certified under the Mammography Quality Standards Act, and to be certified it must be accredited by an approved body. ACR is one of those approved bodies. The FDA says accreditation includes periodic review of clinical images and an annual survey by a medical physicist.

Beyond basic accreditation, ACR says facilities can pursue ACR Designated Center status and the Diagnostic Imaging Center of Excellence designation. If you see one of these named, ask the facility what it covers.

You can check, right now, before your appointment.

ACR runs an accredited facility search on its website. Use it to ask a practical question: which nearby places are accredited for the scan my doctor ordered?

If your appointment is already booked somewhere and it does not appear, that is worth raising. Ask the scheduler which accreditations the facility holds and for which scans.

Be clear-eyed here, because this is where people over-read a gold seal.

Accreditation does not promise that your particular scan will be read correctly. It speaks to the facility: its equipment, its physics oversight and its image quality. Interpreting your images is still a human judgment made by one radiologist on one day. That is exactly why outside second reads of films are a normal request. They are not an insult.

It does not promise a short wait, a kind technologist, a comfortable table or a bill you can afford.

It does not make a center a cancer treatment program. ACR accredits imaging and radiation oncology facilities. A hospital's overall cancer program is accredited separately, by the Commission on Cancer.

And a facility without ACR accreditation is not automatically bad. The absence of a seal is a question to ask. It is not a verdict.

Most people do not get to choose their imaging center. Insurance, geography and referral patterns decide it.

If you do have a choice, this is a fair way to make it. If you do not, spend your energy elsewhere:

• Make sure the right scan was ordered.
• Get the images and report into your own hands afterward.
• Ask who will read them.

Those three things affect your care more than the sticker does.