BUSINESSMobile ancillary services let physicians rentCompanies offer imaging or surgical equipment to practices that don't have capital to buy, don't want the overhead, or don't need it all the time.By Mike Norbut, amednews staff. Feb. 13, 2006. Physicians at The Longstreet Clinic in Gainesville, Ga., no longer have to send patients to the local hospital for outpatient gynecological procedures. They don't even have to make room to store the necessary equipment in their office. Instead, the 10-physician ob-gyn group rents the equipment on an as-needed basis from a local company, which wheels the machines right into the clinic's procedure room. For the patient, the arrangement offers convenience and a chance to forego general anesthesia because of advanced technology. For physicians, it offers a higher reimbursement rate, because insurers pay a site fee that normally would go to the hospital in addition to the typical procedure fee. "There's a considerable advantage for us to do it here," said Zack Dillard, MD, an ob-gyn with the practice. "For some reason, the reimbursement is better if we do it here than in a hospital. This is really for the benefit of the patient as well as the physician," he said. More physicians are investigating mobile services as a way to enhance what they offer in-house and build revenue without making a large capital investment. There are companies that provide imaging and surgical support services, and they cater to most specialties -- from primary care to cardiology and neurology. They allow practices that might not generate large procedure volume a chance to care for patients without sending them to the hospital. [...]Full text of American Medical News content is available to AMA members and paid subscribers.
Copyright 2006 American Medical Association. All rights reserved.
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