Providing the very best digital mammography to your patients via ONsite Mammography can be surprisingly profitable to your practice

When a patient arrived at a well-established Florida OB/GYN practice for her annual exam, which also included a scheduled screening mammogram, she had no idea what was to come. During the physician consult immediately following her exam, she learned that a radiologist for ONsite Mammography, the company providing screening mammogram services within her doctor’s office, had alerted her physician after reading the mammogram. Because the images from the mammogram showed a very aggressive form of breast cancer, she was quickly referred to a surgical oncologist to commence treatment. All of this took place within 24 hours, an amazingly short period of time!

ONsite Mammography has been helping physicians provide In-Office Mammography services to patients for more than two decades while also boosting their medical practices’ revenue and profits. Originally established as American OB/GYN, the company’s turn-key solution for building and operating an in-office digital imaging center includes providing the equipment, equipment maintenance, technologists, IT infrastructure, image management, facility management, and radiologist interpretation so doctors may remain focused on their patients. Importantly, all the radiologists ONsite uses are board-certified and fellowship-trained breast specialists.

In 2008, ONsite Mammography contracted with Sekine Rasner and Brock, a three-physician OB/GYN practice in Jacksonville that’s part of the 200-doctor Florida Women’s Health group, after administrator Judi Lento noticed age-appropriate patients weren’t getting their annual mammogram.

“So many times, I’d look at a chart and see where the doctor had talked to the patient about mammography, given her a mammogram script, and a year later, she still hadn’t gotten one,” she said. “Most likely, they made an appointment and didn’t keep it. In the current job environment, people are afraid to leave work multiple times. Now we can capture them on site.”

Making it easier for women to have mammograms helps decrease breast cancer mortalities. Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer among women, accounting for some 16 percent of all female cancers—and more than a half million deaths annually. According to a recent U.S. study conducted by the Medco Research Institute, only two of three age-appropriate women (age 40 or older) convert scripts to mammograms on an annual basis. After three years, most ONsite Mammography practices are 95 percent compliant. That’s a huge improvement!

In addition to detecting breast cancer earlier, in-office mammograms have proven benefits of convenience, enhance patient retention, boost compliance-meet insurance carrier benchmarks, and provide practices with an effective marketing tool.

Ignacio Armas, MD, an OB/GYN physician with Women’s Care Florida Obstetrics & Gynecology Associates in Brandon, selected ONsite Mammography primarily because of the company’s professional way of doing business. “They were informative and attentive to my needs and more interested in a successful implementation rather than just getting another account,” he said. “The patients love the service. The ‘one stop shopping’ is a real draw, and ONsite Mammography is a great practice-builder. It benefits my business with increased patient satisfaction and improved customer care. The service has been profitable from the first month.”

For more than 15 years, ONsite Mammography has contracted with Women’s Health Services in Jensen Beach. When Bill Hughes, CPA and an OB/GYN assembly board member for the national MGMA, joined the practice, he noticed the mammography division was a “nice, seamless environment.” Last year, the practice performed 7,300 mammograms in-house, while gaining a profit margin near 30 percent.

“It’s been a stream of revenue that’s improved our cash flow,” he said. “Because major payors normally pay within two or three weeks, you’re practically getting all the cash in before they bill you for management fees. Also, we don’t have to worry about a supply of employees and issues like vacations and sick time. That department’s handled without us having to put hardly any administrative effort into it. Those two perks are big money-savers you can’t put a dollar amount on, but they make a huge difference.”

OB/GYNs who have been exploring ways to enhance patient services and increase the  profitability of their practice without adding more doctors, patients, and insurance costs during these tricky economic times know the best way to accomplish that goal is by adding ancillary in-office services like those offered by ONsite Mammography. Premier practices have reported increased patient satisfaction and compliance while also significantly enhancing annual cash flow by adding digital mammography to their portfolio of in-office services.

David Freedman, Director of Business Development for ONsite Mammography may be contacted at dfreedman@onsitemammography.com.    

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