Grappling with ongoing imaging backlogs, industry giant RadNet Inc. is hoping artificial intelligence and “aggressive talent acquisition” tactics can provide relief.
Leaders discussed the Los Angeles-based imaging center operator’s concerns during a quarterly earnings call on March 1. In recent years, RadNet has focused on constructing brand new centers in markets where it’s experiencing backlogs that require more capacity and access points.
CEO Howard Berger, MD, anticipates that a dozen such “de novo” centers will open in 2024, helping to relieve pent up demand. However, staffing new locations is another challenge.
“As far as overall volume is concerned, we do have significant backlogs virtually in all of our markets,” Berger told investors. “Part of that is driven by demand. Part of it is driven by the continued challenge that we have for labor. And while I believe that that has improved and [we] began that turnaround in, perhaps, the second part of 2023 and it is continuing into 2024, it still does compromise the ability for us to access all of the capacity that we’ve created.”
RadNet hopes to address staffing challenges, at least partly, through its new career training center, announced in February. Dubbed “ImagingWorks,” the initiative has RadNet partnering with workforce development nonprofit and social service agency JVS SoCal to build a pipeline for training imaging professionals.
Berger also highlighted the implementation of artificial intelligence solutions from RadNet subsidiary DeepHealth as a second approach to addressing staffing challenges. The company in 2023 invested $1.3 million for the research and development of its operating system and generative AI. RadNet believes such tools will lower costs and increase efficiency across patient scheduling, preauthorization, insurance verification and revenue cycle management. Leaders expect to begin implementing generative AI across the company’s 370-plus imaging centers sometime in the second half of 2024.
“We believe this research and development investment will pay dividends both in our core imaging center business and for the current and future customers outside of RadNet,” Berger said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the company also discussed equipment upgrades as a third way to address backlogs and free up capacity. RadNet has invested in technology to cut down MRI scan times, which have dropped from between 45 to 60 minutes down to 20 or 30 minutes, Berger said. Certain exams are even as short as 10 minutes, using software that is “relatively less expensive” than it is to buy another MRI system.
Berger also highlighted RadNet’s use of technology that allows one remote technologist to operate several scanners. The company already is piloting this approach in MR and CT, with the possibility of expanding it to ultrasound and mammography.
“It will also not only, I believe, help us with scan time efficiencies, but help us address this shortage of personnel, particularly technologists, that can allow us to have what we call ‘super techs’ overseeing this, and then tech aids at our individual centers and not necessarily fully licensed technologists,” Berger told investors during the earnings call.
RadNet’s imaging center segment collected “record” earnings (before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) of $68.3 million in the fourth quarter. That’s up about 11% when compared to the same three months in 2022. Berger and colleagues attribute this milestone, at least in part, to “a labor market that, while still challenging to attract and retain talent, has stabilized and improved since its most challenging post COVID periods.”
You can read much more about the company’s quarterly earnings report here and find a full transcript of the call here.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.