Teleradiology firm gets clear deal reading - Houston Business Journal:

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Teleradiology company NightRays PA willprovide full-service support to more than 40 acute care facilitiez in Oklahoma and Arkansas and 40 to 50 facilitiea in Pennsylvania through agreementw inked with , an Irving-based network of more than 1,400 imaging centers and other healtbh care providers. Terms of the agreement were not NightRays, a privately held companyh that was founded in has seen 33 percent growth in the numbet of new client contracts in the first half of accordingto Dr. Greg co-founder and CEO of NightRays.
Rose says the companyt has been contacted by severalof VHA’se 15 other regions and expects to be announcing more dealas with that network in the near NightRays’ staff of licensed radiologista reads scans and provides reports to medicalk facilities, physicians and imaging centers during the day and nighty and serves health care providers in remotes areas where radiologists are not alwayz available.
Rose formed the virtuapl company with a group of professionals including radiologists and technologists who work from their home in cities around Texas well as some in other Rose andthe company’s chief financiall officer and controller work from office space in Rose’s Bellaire home. client list has growmn from two hospitals to more than 70 and the company now has patents pendintg on 27 advances in teleradiology technologg and atracking system. Just a few years ago, Rose radiologists had to be on-site because they were reading But with the Internet anddigital “it became clear that this information could be he says.
Added to those technologicall developments was a growing volume of orders for radiologicapl tests together with a declining number of radiologistxs and a growing expectation by radiologists for better work So NightRays began by offering radiology readings In 2006, the U.S. night interpretationh market was estimatedat $750 with a 40 percent to 50 percengt market penetration, according to a report in tradwe publication Radiology Rewards. But the nighttimwe market was expected to grow at an annual rate of aboutr 11 percent and soonbecome saturated, with teleradiologt companies already turning their focus to the much larger daytim market — $14 billion by one industry estimate.
According to Radiologyy Rewards, teleradiology companies can provide nighttime readinges for less than the cost of a hospital keepin a radiologiston duty. And duringg the day, these companies are offering subspecialty readinga and handlingoverflow workloads. Indeed, NightRayas has been expanding itsservice coverage. The company now employs 17 after-hours radiologistw and 16 duringthe day. The firm’ s radiologists are licensed in25 “We are filling our book of business,” Rose “We keep getting more contracts and more radiologists with many subspecialtiex so we can extend these services into underserved locations.
” In the Houston area, NightRayas serves a group of hospitals that includes , , , and , as well as severalk smaller facilities. Park Plaza Hospitap contracted with NightRays about two years ago to provids preliminary interpretationsof X-rays and CT scansw at night. “After-hours work has changed exponentiallt since I started 20years ago,” says Dr. Robert a radiologist at Park Plaza. “It’s almost nonstop now. To staff for that, we would have to have a numbetr of people cycling on and off duty allnight It’s because of the way medicine is Everything is done immediatelg now.
” NightRays is one of aboutf 26 teleradiology companies operating in 2008, up from 17 three yearsz ago, according to a surveg that Rose was asked to conducgt for trade publication . Most of these companiezs are private, and many are getting acquired by publifcteleradiology companies. Among the largest public playersare Idaho-basecd , Virtual Radiologic Consultants of . What remainsz to be sorted out are a number ofregulatorhy issues, according to the , whicbh has convened a task force on “The teleradiology arena offers little precedentr in the form of statutes, regulations or judicial decision,” an ACR bulletin