How does one go about buying an MRI machine/CT scan and opening up an imaging center?
You write a check, they deliver. You build a building according to code, they will install.
That was the easy part:
The difficulty is in:
- getting insurance carriers to contract with you (most markets are oversaturated, commercial carriers have no incentive to add additional providers)
- getting clinicians to refer to you (most have established referral patterns, you are not allowed to pay them kickbacks and they have little reason to change their referral pattern just to do you a favor).
Is this difficult to do? How much do the machines cost?
How much money do you have lying around ? Do you want to buy new, do you have another business that could benefit from getting the startup losses assigned ?
Basic CT scanner : $900k
High-end scanner with cardiac: $1.3mil
Low-field open MRI : $800k
High-field MRI: $1.5mil
Digital mammo: $250k-400k
Building ?
All these things can be leased, the manufacturers are happy to make a leasing deal. Also, it is possible to purchase used equipment (e.g. well used coach mounted low-field MRI scanners can be found for $400k).
Tends to be considerable. You need qualified technical staff, you need to decide whether you want to do your own billing or contract it out.
How many years would it take you to clear startup costs and overhead?
OP imaging centers used to be a veritable river of gold. Lots of venture capitalists have jumped into the business. I don't know what the timeframe to make money on this would be, it certainly would depend on lots of factors such as local market, whether you buy or lease equipment etc.
I know about the rumored professional fee cuts in 2007, but will this really affect physicians opening up such imaging centers? Will it continue to be profitable in the future?
It will put a considerable damper on the proliferation of OP imaging centers. The cuts are btw. mostly for the technical component of the fees, and depending on who you listen to it will mean a 20-50% cut in medicare related revenues for these centers.
So, until this shakes out, it might not be a good idea to sink the money you made before medschool in your IT career into building an imaging center
Oh, by the way: Depending on the corner of the country, the CEO of the local hospital might put out a contract on your head ....
