From the May 2012 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine


David Denholtz, CEO of Integrity Medical Systems, Inc. predicts a similar market impact.

“When this hits, they [doctors] are going to say forget about this bone density stuff. They’ll get rid of their DXA machine, or when it breaks, they’ll just get rid of it.”


This could mean sellers will have to drop their prices.

“There will be more used machines out there and we’ll have to sell them for less,” says Denholtz.

At the same time, he thinks service and part sales will increase because private practices who hold out won’t buy a new machine if their current one breaks. Instead, they’ll be more likely to fix it.

Denholtz also speculates that if prices for machines come down low enough, due to the glut on the market, a bounce back could occur.

“People might say, you know, I thought those DXA machines were $30,000, I’m seeing them for $7,000. I think I’ll go out and get one.”

DXA migrates to hospitals
Many private practice physicians have already given up on DXA screening in their offices.

“People I’ve dealt with for years are either giving away their machine or not maintaining their contracts,” says Fiorentino. “We see a collapse of the folks that care for these patients, that whole structure is imploding.”

But a new structure is slowly forming in hospitals, which have not been affected by the same reimbursement cuts that private practices have been subjected to through the years.

“I think CMS wanted to see a shift, they wanted to pull the machine out of the doctor’s office and put them in the hospitals. The idea would be that machines would be used more,” says Fiorentino.

Complete Medical Services’ Rubinoff says that at one time, the bone densitometer side of his business was primarily focused in doctors’ offices. Today, it’s a combination of private practice, hospitals and imaging centers.

Hologic, a top manufacturer for bone densitometers along with GE, sees an increasing number of customers coming from hospitals as well.

“It used to be more private practices, but it’s probably 50-50 now,” says William Clarke, product marketing manager for skeletal health at Hologic. At the same time, Clarke says he sees more OB-GYN doctors in the private practice space offering DXA scans to patients.

“There’s a trend where a lot of women see their OBGYN as their primary care doctor; that’s where they go, that’s who they trust,” he says.

However, if a woman’s OB-GYN or primary care doctor doesn’t offer the service, it’s likely she’ll have to make a special trip to a hospital to get a scan, making it more difficult, particularly for elderly and disabled women, to get screened.

May 2012 Magazine

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