Health Focus: Medical imaging faces uncertain year as hospitals cut back; sector once seen as recession proof - The Business Review (Albany):

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Norman Dascher, CEO of the patient care division of the Troy-based parent of Albany Memorial, Samaritabn and Sunnyview Rehabilitation hospitals, said this structured replacement schedules kept the company from getting behind and having to buy severall machines at once. A top-of-the-line MRI or CT scanner can cost upwardwof $2 million. This year is The operating surplus and investment income Northeast reliee on for capital purchasesx havebeen erased. It will buy no MRIs or Now, Northeast is in talks with St. Peter’z Hospital in Albany and Troy-based to create a unified system. One of thei r goals is to end the competition to purchase thelatesgt equipment.
­­ The medical imaging industry is important to this General Electric has made diagnostiv imaging one ofthe “highest of its Global Research Center in Niskayuna, and soon will open a $165 milliobn digital X-ray detector plant in North Greenbushn (See related story, Page 18). employs 500 people at its global MRI headquartersin Latham. And , a 10-year-olde Schenectady company, is seeking financing to commercialize itsdiagnostid device. The industry has often been called The ideawas that, sincse imaging is a high-margin service, healthu care providers would upgrade their equipment and try to one-up their competitors in any economy.
The , a Cleveland research in July predicted a 6 percent annualp increasein U.S. demand for imaging products. But as Northeast’ds story shows, the industry might not be so immune to this Hospitals nationwide are trimminyg theircapital budgets, and a federal call for healtu care reform could prompt more consolidation. Reimbursement changex and cuts in personal spending also are playinga “I think in this current all the rules of a recession-proof industrhy are kind of out,” said Richard Fabian, vice president of the Imagint Systems Group for Philips.
Fabian, who is basee in Seattle, said the imagingh market as a whole was downin 2008, and “that is the first time I can rememberf that happening in the 12 yearsa I’ve been in the industry.” Imaging equipment stilkl is important to area health care providers. planz to add two digital X-ray rooms in its ER, and latefr this year will replace an MRI and purchased aportable X-ray system for its intensive care unit. St. Peter’w recently bought a high-definition 64-slice dual-head CT scanner and a nuclead medicine camera.
, an arm of Latham-basecd , did a “sweeping of its equipment in preparation for the economicd downturn it saw Dascher said Northeast also is well positioned in that its purchasees over the past few years kept itsequipmenrt current, allowing it to hold off untikl the financial picture improves. But it is not only providetr budgets that impact theimaging Dr. William Hendrick, medical directod for Image­Care, said reimbursement changes have been abigger problem. The federal Deficitg Reduction Act, which took effect in 2007, reducedf Medicare reimbursement rates for imaging procedures in physician officesw and freestanding centers.
“Theyh decide they need to save money so they say thingslike ‘if you do CT scana on two body parts, we will only pay half for the or ‘we’re paying too much for so we’ll cut reimbursemen t by X for all procedures,’ ” he Tom Feist, general manager of globalk X-ray operations for , said these cuts were felt by the equipmenr suppliers, because physician offices and imaginbg centers are big buyersz of MRIs, CT scanners and other large systems.
Job lossesd and personal spending cuts also have taken a Providers say they already are seeing people who have lost theirhealth insurance, or who are unwilling to part with a co-pay or deductible, putting off medicall care. “If the imagin centers aren’t recession proof, neither are thei suppliers,” Feist said. Doug Cushing, vice president of ambulatory servicesfor , said that institution is studying usage to decidre if it should invesf in new equipment.
He said Saratogq will replace equipmentas needed, but “wse are looking at maybe not adding more imaging Among patients, Hendrick said, demand for MRI and CT scans has remained relatively steady at but he has noticed a decline in mammogramsd of late. GE’s North Greenbusuh plant will make parts forthe company’a digital mammography systems. Feist said the company is openingv thefacility “through a brutally difficult because it is confident the markett will improve and the demanxd will be for digital technology.