by
Sean Ruck, Contributing Editor | June 20, 2011
From the June 2011 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
In addition to the cost involved with replacing the unit, facilities have to consider the cost involved in educating those with significant SPECT experience to learn the ropes of PET or a PET hybrid. Time is also money and to send those individuals off for training means a slowdown in providing service to patients and for health care providers already gun-shy about patient loss after the supply shortage, it’s not an attractive proposition.
One of the other reasons SPECT will maintain its large share of the U.S. market is because it’s relatively affordable and justifiable as a loss-leader for private practices. “Mobile cardiac SPECT in the office is often about patient retention and services,” says Joe Mathews, director of sales and operation for Nuclear Medicine Professionals Inc.
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By managing as much of their patients’ care as possible before handing off to a specialist, doctors increase the likelihood of retaining that patient. If a patient is able to take care of more at a specialist, there’s the possibility they’ll shift their business there or maybe to a general practitioner near the specialist for the sake of convenience. “Small practitioners have to offer a variety of services, even if some are only at a break-even because they’re considering the global worth of that patient,” says Mathews.
Private offices feel the pain
Of the 18,000 nuclear cameras in the U.S., more than a third are dedicated to nuclear cardiology. This means more than 6,000 cameras rely on a steady supply of technetium-99m to keep them running. And nuclear cardiology is largely a service provided by private cardiology offices.
Those private offices, already hammered by 36 percent cuts in reimbursement and a required utilization rate increase from 50 percent to 90 percent, really took the brunt of the damage from the shortage.
See the nuclear medicine sales & services directory here.
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