by
Joanna Padovano, Reporter | December 19, 2011
From the December 2011 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
“We saw an uptick in the first three quarters, and now things are kind of notching back a little bit,” reports John Vartanian, president of Medical Imaging Resources, a mobile service provider of MR, CT, Cath/Angio, nuclear medicine and PET/CT. “We see a lot of people pushing their projects off. Projects that were scheduled for the third and fourth quarter [of 2011] are getting pushed into first, second, or third quarter of 2012.”
Jim Varcarolis, vice president and general manager of operations for Insight Health, a provider of mobile MR and PET/CT, says that his company has noticed the needs of customers have been changing. “Depending on who the customer is, some of it is due to customer growth—expanding their services—and some of it is due to technology changes,” he says.
Mobile services across the border
Aside from Canada and Mexico, it’s uncommon for mobile service providers in the United States to conduct business internationally.
“We’re pretty much limited to where there are roads,” says Dishman, noting that he has been approached a few times by potential customers who wanted him to ship a trailer overseas for a project. “It’s never happened because the real cost of doing that is so high, it’s just cost-prohibitive . . . I would say that’s a much smaller niche to approach.”
Medical Imaging Resources, on the other hand, does sell their mobile units outside of North America, but only on rare occasions. When this occurs, the trailer is placed on a roll-on/roll-off ship—designed to transport wheeled cargo—and then sailed to its overseas destination.
Photo courtesy of
Medical Coaches
Reimbursement, repairs and regulations
Reimbursement rates for mobile services are no different than those of fixed units, since the equipment is no different than what is located inside hospitals and imaging facilities.
Repairs are generally the same too, with one major difference. “The added dimension is the trailer,” explains Dishman. “There are some people that will say that any kind of medical equipment in a mobile environment is more prone to repairs, but I haven’t really found that to be true. What is going to be prone to repairs is the mobile that you’ve got it housed in.” He adds, “My experience over the years has been that as long as you’re doing preventive maintenance and you pay attention to things right away when they pop up, you don’t have more problems than you would have at a typical fixed site.”
