Overview

Departments

Radiology

Centers & Specialties

Cancer Center

Vascular Center

Clinical Interests
  • Minimally invasive treatments of back and leg pain
  • Compression fracture
  • Sacral fracture
  • Back pain
  • Herniated disc
  • Vertebroplasty
  • Kyphoplasty
  • Sacroplasty
  • Metastatic spine tumors
  • Spine fractures
  • Fibromuscular dysplasia (FMD)
  • Minimally invasive cerebrovascular disease
Medical Education
  • MD, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
  • Residency, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania
  • Fellowship, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania|Fellowship, Lahey Clinic
Board Certifications
  • Diagnostic Radiology
Locations
  • Boston: Massachusetts General Hospital
Insurances Accepted
  • Aetna Health Inc.
  • Beech Street
  • Blue Cross Blue Shield - Blue Care 65
  • Blue Cross Blue Shield - Indemnity
  • Blue Cross Blue Shield - Managed Care
  • Blue Cross Blue Shield - Partners Plus
  • Cigna (PAL #'s)
  • Fallon Community HealthCare
  • Great-West Healthcare (formally One Health Plan)
  • Harvard Pilgrim Health Plan - PBO
  • Health Care Value Management (HCVM)
  • Humana/Choice Care PPO
  • MassHealth
  • Medicare
  • Medicare - ACD
  • Neighborhood Health Plan - ACD
  • Neighborhood Health Plan - PBO
  • OSW - Maine
  • OSW - New Hampshire
  • OSW - Rhode Island
  • OSW - Vermont
  • Private Health Care Systems (PHCS)
  • Railroad Medicare
  • Railroad Medicare - ACD
  • Senior Whole Health
  • TriCare
  • Tufts Health Plan
  • Unicare
  • United Healthcare (non-HMO) - ACD
  • United Healthcare (non-HMO) - PBO

Note: This provider may accept more insurance plans than shown; please call the practice to find out if your plan is accepted.

Patient Age Group
Adult
Gender
Male

Biography

Joshua Hirsch MD FACR FSIR FSNIS is director of Interventional Neuroradiology, chief of the Interventional Spine Service, vice chair of Interventional Radiology Quality & Safety and associate Departmental Quality Chair.  He has extensive experience in diagnosis, management and treatment of cerebrovascular disease, minimally invasive spine surgery and acute stroke treatment.

Dr. Hirsch has published over 450 papers, 40 chapters and edited multiple books in the peer-reviewed literature. He is a founding editor of the Journal of NeuroInterventional Surgery and is a past president of both the American Society of Spine Radiology (ASSR) and the Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery (SNIS). He has been elected to the board of the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians (ASIPP), the Society for Injectable Osteoarticular Biomaterials and the American Society of Neuroradiology (ASNR). He is chair of a committee for academicians at the American College of Radiology. 

Dr. Hirsch was named a senior affiliate research fellow of the Neiman Policy Institute. He is an advisor to the RUC, chairs the health policy committee and member of the Niekro Foundation's Medical Advisory Board.  Dr. Hirsch co-chairs the Neuro-Psychiatric working group developing episodic cost measures.

Dr. Hirsch has received numerous awards including ones for transformational leadership at the ASSR, distinguished service at the ASNR and academic achievement at ASIPP.  He has been named one of America's Top Doctors and a Best of Boston physician for multiple consecutive years. He is a member of the Marquis Who's Who and was recently awarded the 100 designation from the MGH's Cancer Center. He has been named an inaugural fellow of the SNIS for his many contributions to the field of NeuroInterventional Surgery.

He was recently featured in a NeuroNews profile bit.ly/2va0daS

Research & Publications

Research Summary

Dr. Hirsch has multiple research interests and actively publishes extensively in the peer-reviewed literature. His research includes cerebrovascular disease and minimally invasive options to treat cerebrovascular conditions such as intracranial aneurysms (both ruptured and unruptured), arterio-venous malformations and large vessel occlusion leading to stroke. As a result of this research, Dr. Hirsch has led the development of multiple clinical guidelines for cerebrovascular disease and is invited around the world to lecture on these topics.

Dr. Hirsch's research includes many important projects related to percutaneous augmentation. He has authored one of the largest series in the peer-reviewed literature for the minimally invasive treatment of both malignant and benign vertebral compression fractures.  Most recently, he has focused on futuristic elements such as treatment of new sites and new theories of treatment.  Concurrently, Dr. Hirsch has been very active in defining standards for systematic reviews and meta-analyses in interventional pain management (IPM).  To that end, he has published extensively in the IPM space. 

Additionally, Dr. Hirsch has published extensively on socioeconomic issues, health care policy, interventional operations management, comparative effectiveness research and evidence-based clinical practice. 

Dr. Hirsch is a founding editor of the Journal of NeuroInterventional Surgery, has served on the editorial board on many prestigious journals and has produced multiple podcasts in association with these various publications.

Publications

View my most recent publications at PubMed

News & Events

  • Vice chair comments on vertebroplasty debate

    In advance of the annual meeting of the North American Spine Society this week in Boston, neurointerventional radiologist and department vice chair Joshua A. Hirsch, MD talks about the landmark VAPOUR trial on vertebroplasty.

  • Celebrating Patient Safety Stars

    As part of the MGH’s commitment to quality and safety, Hotline will feature each of the 50 Patient Safety Stars throughout the remainder of the year, highlighting a portion of their standout nominations.

  • Celebrating Patient Safety Stars

    As part of the MGH’s commitment to quality and safety, Hotline will feature each of the 50 Patient Safety Stars throughout the remainder of the year, highlighting a portion of their standout nominations.

  • NeuroInterventional Spine Program treats two generations

    An active octogenarian, John Higgins walked up to four miles a day to stay fit. But one night last winter, he slipped on a sheet of ice. “I went down and hit my hip,” he says. He remembers the agony he felt on both sides and across the middle of his back. “I couldn’t take a step without excruciating pain. There was nothing I could do.”

  • MGH patient finds relief after months of debilitating pain

    Albert Arillotta did not think things could get much worse after he was diagnosed with cancer. A father of three children and an avid golfer, 52-year-old Arillotta enjoyed a healthy, active lifestyle until the day he received shocking news after a CT scan: he had kidney cancer.

  • Professional society names new editor-in-chief of multidisciplinary journal

    Peer-reviewed medical journal on interventional pain management names Mass General radiologist as new editor-in-chief.

  • Neurointerventional surgery journal accepted into Medline

    The Journal of NeuroInterventional Surgery (JNIS) has been accepted for inclusion in the Medline bibliographic database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM).

  • Joshua A. Hirsch, MD, elected president of Society of Neurointerventional Surgery

    The SNIS is a national organization of physicians who have special expertise in treating such conditions as stroke, aneurysms, carotid stenosis and spinal abnormalities through minimally invasive procedures.

  • Minimally invasive procedure eases back pain

    Nucleoplasty, a minimally invasive, image-guided treatment performed by Dr. Joshua Hirsch at Massachusetts General Hospital Imaging brought relief to a local woman suffering from herniated disc pain.

Multimedia

Contact

NeuroInterventional Radiology, Department of Radiology
55 Fruit Street
Boston, MA 02114-2696
Phone: 617-726-1767
Fax: 617-726-3089