Financing Diagnostic Imaging Joint Ventures:
The Next New Models

Just as the business models for outpatient diagnostic imaging are in flux, so are the methods of financing these enterprises.

Along with $1,500 per scan reimbursement for MRI and lavish, oversized freestanding imaging centers, gone are the days of unknowing and unwitting lenders who only needed to buy into an entrepreneurial vision. Obtaining financing for a diagnostic imaging center today requires a lot more. Times change, circumstances change, and therefore the models of delivery need to change along with them. The goal of this article is to discuss financing of these enterprises and the related nuances of financing, some of which are new because of the changing realities, and some that are not new at all. While financing the newer models (joint ventures, timeshare arrangements, and cooperatives) have some unique aspects, they share many of the same features with the models of the past. The answers to the following questions will help determine whether a planned outpatient diagnostic imaging service can succeed, and whether you can convince others, such as partners and lenders, that you have a winner.

What is your business strategy and why will the business work? This "hook" explains why patients will come to the new business enterprise. Just having the perceived best or differentiated equipment and the best service does not matter as much as it used to, although they are still very important aspects of a strategy. What does matter is the hook. Is the population growing in your market in such a way that a new service provider in the area just makes good business sense? Or have you partnered with a group of orthopedic physicians who have been referring out between six and eight MRI patients a day to a local imaging center and now want the convenience and financial benefit of having the service in or adjacent to their office? This latter approach is an example of the next new model, and there are plenty of variations on the theme.

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