ACR Members Featured in Report on Hospital's Exclusion of Imaging Centers
The decision by Providence Health System to cut two imaging centers from its provider network has started a firestorm in the Portland, Ore, medical community, according to a May 6 article in the Portland Business Journal. According to the report, titled "Health Care Groups Protest Providence Imaging Plan," Providence will continue to cover services by the two excluded centers, EPIC Imaging East and Body Imaging Radiology, but at a higher-cost "out of network" rate. Area physicians have questioned whether Providence is creating an imaging monopoly and if the diagnostic services "will be as affordable or as comprehensive as those offered" by the two imaging firms. In response, the centers filed an antitrust lawsuit last month against Providence in US District Court in an effort to prevent the exclusion.
"Now that Providence Health System's own imaging facilities have expanded and can more adequately handle patient capacity through the Portland area, we have determined it is in the best interest of customers to consolidate these services in Portland through the PHS facilities," Phil Jackson, Providence's regional director of network development, wrote in a recent letter to ACR Fellow Gerald L. Warnock, MD, president of EPIC Imaging East.
The article noted that Warnock has "questioned the ability of his company to survive if it loses the injunction." Another ACR member, Paul A. Meunier, MD, medical director of Body Imaging, said in the article that his facility could lose as much as 40% of its business if the exclusion is allowed.
Providence officials announced last month that it had agreed to extend its contracts with the two centers until June 30 to "allow time for PHP and the two providers to prepare responses to recent legal developments." The exclusion had been set to take effect May 1.
Click here to read the full Portland Business Journal article.