Hospital system forms new radiology group after relationship with Rad Partners dissolves

An east coast hospital system has formed a new radiology group after its previous relationship with industry giant Rad Partners recently ended.

Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic first announced the official launch of Mid Atlantic Radiology Consultants on July 1. Radiologists from Mercy Diagnostic Imaging—who previously served the four-hospital system—alongside professionals from the Radiology Group of Abington and other independent docs, formed the new organization. They’ll serve as the hospital system’s exclusive imaging provider beginning this month.

“This is a first for our region,” Jim Woodward, president and CEO of Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic, said in an announcement. “A direct partnership between a health system and independent radiology physicians hasn’t been done before at another health system in the greater Philadelphia area.”

Newtown Square, Pennsylvania-based Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic made the decision following dissatisfaction with a private equity-backed radiology group it had worked with previously, the Philadelphia Business Journal reported July 2. Woodward declined to identify the “large scale” imaging group to the publication, citing contract confidentiality requirements. But he shared a personal belief that such PE-backed provider groups “serve their shareholders’ interest not the patients' and doctors' and hospitals' interests.”

The group in question appears to be New Jersey-based Radiology Affiliates Imaging, which joined industry giant Radiology Partners in June 2019. An archived version of the practice’s website from February listed three of Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic’s hospitals as affiliates. Those included Nazareth Hospital in Philadelphia, St. Francis Hospital in Wilmington, Del., and St. Mary Medical Center in Langhorne, Pa., along with operating the St. Mary Imaging Richboro outpatient center in Pennsylvania. All had been deleted from Radiology Affiliates Imaging’s website as of July 5.

Rad Partners did not immediately respond to a Radiology Business request for comment Friday.

Trinity first came up with the idea to create a large independent group of radiologists to serve the system about a year ago. Oleg Teytelboym, MD—chair of Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital’s Department of Radiology in Darby, Pa., and leader of the Mercy Diagnostic Imaging Group, which employs nine rads—discussed the idea with other independent docs in the region. Radiologists he spoke with conveyed a dissatisfaction with investor-backed groups that “come in and forget about the patients,” he told the Philadelphia Business Journal.

Since then, Teytelboym and colleagues have recruited 21 independent radiologists including those from the shuttered Radiology Group of Abington. They’ll provide the full range of radiology services, along with operating a “robust” academic residency program that offers training in all areas of subspecialty care.

“You won’t find this level of dedication to radiology services anywhere else in the region,” Teytelboym said in the Trinity Health announcement.

“Importantly, this new partnership brings radiology services back to the bedside, reversing a growing trend in the healthcare industry to outsource these types of services to large-scale radiology corporations, whose physicians often never set foot in the hospitals where they operate,” added Woodward.