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November 25, 2024 • 13 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Here's your Channel nine first warning weather forecasts going to
be overcast day to day, early showers isolated and maybe
some Saturday evening showers showing up. I have fifty eight
today down to thirty seven overnight overcast forty five for
the height. Tomorrow is sunny skies, partly cloudy overnight down
to thirty one, and mostly cloudy Wednesday with a chance
of rain after one pm. Forty seven of be the

(00:23):
high then the fifty fort degrees right now.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Traffic time from the UCLP Traffic Center with U see
health the future. Care is happening now through clinical trials
and innovative treatments that give patients a chance for better outcomes.
Visit ucehealth dot com. North Pound seventy five continues to
run a bit heavy between Buttermilk and downtown and an
extra five minutes north Pound fourth seventy one. That's clearing out,

(00:45):
so is southbound seventy five through the Loachland Split. Middimal
delays at this point. Chuck Ingram on fifty five KR
seat the talk station.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
It's a thirty nine here, fifty five krc DE talk station.
Very happy money to you. It's that time a week
we do KRS Cares and today my friend Ulysses days
from Affordable Medical Imaging Joints and program to explain how
it is that they can do what they do compared
to the hospital imaging departments. It's absolutely crazy. And I've

(01:17):
experienced the CT scan at Affordable Imaging Services and I
know what it's like to say, a heap load of
money versus the hospital where I have also gotten many
scans over the years. It's just amazing. Ulysses, Welcome to
the morning show. It's a pleasure having you on, and
let me thank you on behalf of the listeners who've
taken my advice. Jeff is my favorite illustration. He got
a CT scan from you guys, and he saved thirty

(01:41):
one hundred dollars from his own pocket. He would have
had to have paid after the insurance payment thirty one
hundred dollars more than the image price that he got
at Affordable Imaging Services. Welcome to Ulysses. It's good to
have you on the show today.

Speaker 3 (01:58):
Yeah, thank you for having us on the show.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Oh I mean, I mean, I like to point out
you know overhead's locked in there. You know it's the
bells and whistles aort a minimum. But you want there,
you're you're there for the equipment and the imaging which
we're getting in a minute, which is what you're getting
at the hospital. But I always like to point out
when i'm speaking on your behalf as well, you are
your your company, your business model makes a profit even

(02:23):
though you're charging a fraction of what the hospital charges.
Why in the hell is it so expensive to get
an image at the hospital.

Speaker 3 (02:31):
Yeah, that's a good question.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
They we it.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
A lot of it is because there's there's so much
overhead for the hospital. The hospital has equipment that they're
still paying for. Our equipment is paid for there. They
have staffing that they have to pay for that was
so much more staffing that we have. You know, we
literally have four full time employees, and three of those

(02:58):
full time employees is part of partnership. We're local X
ray tech MRI technologists that just happened upon this business
because we were working for the prior company that was
here when we took over in twenty twenty three. We
have one full time office person with the rest of
the employees that we have is part time staff that
does you know, things like ultrasound and echo cardiograms sports. Yeah,

(03:23):
we don't have that exorinent cost, and we don't have
to pass that off to the patient like the hospitals
have to.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Well, and I guess the other component of this, and
it almost goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway,
Ulysses is the doctors are typically referring their patients to
the hospital systems that owns their practice, and by doing so,
you have uninformed patients who look at the prescription, Okay,
you need to get a CT scan, go over to

(03:50):
X hospital, and they just take that advice on face value,
not even realizing that there's an option out there that
they can choose where they want to go, and the
hospitals finding convenient to charge whatever the hell they want
because they have massive overhead that extends beyond the imaging department.
I always like to see all the empty space at
hospitals that has to be heated in air conditioned, all

(04:11):
the empty hospital rooms that still have to be paid for,
the massive building and parking facility, all of which they
have to pay taxes, and it just goes. The list
of expenses for a hospital goes on and on and on.
The imaging department is a great profit center for them.
They can make a heapload of money.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
Yeah, it is the largest profit center actually for a hospital.
Nurses don't make money for the for the hospital, and
that's probably their highest overhead is you know, their staff. Yeah,
and it's staff that doesn't make any money for the company,
even though I mean they're very much needed. Obviously, you
don't want to go to hospital that doesn't have a
nursing staff. But that's that's some of the reasons why

(04:51):
they have to charge so much, and they're allowed to
charge so much because it's in network for a hospit
it's in network hospital for which is different than outpatient
in network imaging, So those those tend to be a
lot more costly of a process. Why a lot of
insurances want to push you to outpatient centers like ourselves

(05:14):
that are actually in contract with them.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
Well, and I do commercials for covers since they and
I actually if by going for example, if you're if
you're properly insured, they've allocated a certain amount of money
to pay for any given image, whether it's a CT scan,
an MRI and ultra sound and echo cardiogram. And by
going to affordable imaging and you get an MRI with
a for four hundred and ninety five bucks. You end

(05:37):
up getting a very large check from the insurance company
because you haven't exhausted the allocated amounts. You can end
up making money by going to affordable imaging services. You're
not you're not going to comment on that. They just
trust me on that one. Just trust me.

Speaker 3 (05:57):
No, we we do. We do see that. We when
we were the prior company and I was the manager
of the facility instead of the owner of this company
or part partner of this company. Now, we would have
patients that would come and tell us it's like yeah,
they they they told me that if I went to
this place, they would they would cut me a check
because I'm going to in that in network out of

(06:18):
you know, out patient facility. Right. So it is, it is,
it is common. Not a lot of people know about it,
and not a lot of people are informed that they can,
that they have a choice, that they can go look around.
And that's kind of what we want to be there
for them, is that we might not be We might
not end up being your choice to come to imaging
because you might have your deductible paid up. It might

(06:40):
benefit you to go somewhere else, but we want you
to call and be informed and know what's the best
place for you to go.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
Right. And hospitals now have an obligation to tell you
what the cost is going to be out of pocket? Correct?
And I used to be there was this giant mystery.
Is the only pop would go to hospitals never knowing
what it was going to cause, Like I got insurance,
Hell I don't care, well you should care. There's deductibles,
is out of pocket responsibility and liability. Don't they have
to tell you now how much it's going to be.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
They do, but a lot of times you'll still hear
from a lot of the patients. And you know, all
three of us, all three of their partners here at
our facility, used to work for for a local hospital
network and we all worked at the same place. And
they they sometimes when they schedule, they'll tell patients, well,
we don't know until we bill it. What I would
tell you is be as well. What I would tell

(07:31):
the patient is be as firm as you possibly can.
You know, I need to know because you know, we
say all the time, you would never purchase a car
without knowing exactly what you're going to pay for it.
Why are you going into a procedure that that is
upwards of thirty five hundred dollars five thousand dollars and
you know you're you're buying pretty much a used car.

(07:51):
Why don't you know exactly what it's going to end
up costing. So there's two parts of any kind of
billing for imaging. There's a there's a technical portion, which
is the we do, and there's a professional portion. The
professional portion is actually the reading, So that's the radiologist
or the interpreter that actually does the reading for you.
And a lot of times they might even be able

(08:13):
to tell you what the technical portion is, but they
don't even tell you about the professional portion. And sometimes
you'll get a bill in the mail two months down
line and you'll be blindsided by something you thought you've
already paid for. So what we always tell people is
make sure you ask what the total cost is going
to be, including the professional portion of the imaging, and that's.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
The Board certified radiologists report, which the doctors need because
that's what interprets the images, you know. And I my
most recent CT scan required a surgeon there because I
had to have a biopsy. So and I know that
wasn't that that wasn't something I could do at affordable imaging.
But the prior CT scan I saved heap loads of money.
But I saw the bill for the most recent one

(08:53):
at the hospital. I mean, you list these eleven thousand dollars,
and I think it's somebody out there who's listening who
maybe can't even afford medical insurance because I know that
it's expensive, and you know, they may be outside of
their realm, or they go through the Obamacare plan, they've
got a ninety five hundred dollars out of pocket responsibility
or something like that, and they're staring at a bill

(09:14):
that they can't afford, I mean, five thousand dollars to
get a CT scan and a radiologist report. It's just
beyond the realm of affordability for so many people, which
is one of the reasons I'm really happy to let
people know about affordable imaging services.

Speaker 3 (09:28):
Yeah, and that's what we're trying to do, is, you know,
try to keep our overhead load where we can keep
our prices to where patients can are not being put
in the poorhouse by their medical bills. You know, all
you have to be is be informed. It might not
even be us. It might end up being that you know,
you have Medicare and it's cheaper to go. Your insurance

(09:50):
allows you to go to the hospital.

Speaker 1 (09:51):
Right.

Speaker 3 (09:52):
It might be that you're a veteran and that you
know it's it's better for you to go to the VA.
We're not the we're not the you know, we're not
the place that there's the one stop shop for everything
that is medical imaging. But you know, the biggest thing
is that you need to be informed as a patient
to know that you can go look and then make

(10:15):
a decisive, you know, call on what's the best for
you as a patient.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
Indeed, that's an excellent, excellent point. And there is a
difference between cheap and affordable. And this isn't a you're
not getting some cut rate service here. You're actually getting
the same type of imaging from a hospital imaging department.
And yet it's the affordable part is what you offer.

Speaker 3 (10:36):
Yeah, yeah, we actually have the same MRI magnet that
our prior job had at one of the hospitals in
the area. So I would think that if it's good
enough for them, it's good enough here. And then we
also have a board certified radiologist that interprets most of
our imaging except for our cardiac imaging, which is the

(10:57):
echo cardiograms. He's local, he read for a local hospital.
So a lot of times when people say, oh, well,
you know I'm going to go to the hospital to
get that expertise, you're getting that same expertise as far
as the interpretation of the exam because you know our
our doctor's board certified ready, I'll just have been doing
this for many, many years. Any superlative, So yeah, it's

(11:18):
it's not it's not cheap, it's not subpart it's not
cut rate. And what we like to think is, you know,
you know that that you need to ask yourselves why
the facilities and the hospitals are charging so much, not necessarily,
why we can afford to give it so it's such
a good cost.

Speaker 1 (11:35):
Exactly, just keep your eyes open as you're walking through
the hospital. You know exactly why they charge so much
at the Impty department Lizzie Days. With affordable medical, with
affordable imaging, you can go online and find all of
the information about pricing location. It's Affordable Medimaging dot com
and yes, you have a choice. This may be the

(11:57):
right choice. What Lissie's pointed out, I'll ask the questions
up front. How much is it going to be? Find
out if you're gonna get separately charged for the Board
Certified radiologists report of the hospital. Make an informed choice,
and you do have a choice, you can go where
you want. Affordablemetimaging dot Com five one three seven five
three eight thousand five one three seven five three eight thousand,

(12:20):
your listens. Thanks for all you do for my listeners
and keeping things affordable, not cheap, but affordable. And I
guess I'll probably end up running into you again because
i know my cancer is not going away, so I'm
gonna need to know a CT skeat down the road.
And the one you did for me most recently came
out aokay with my cancer doctors, so I know it works.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
Awesome. Well, that's awesome. Yeah, we really appreciate being on
the radio with you, and thank you for talking so
kindly about us.

Speaker 1 (12:47):
Oh it's my pleasure to do so, my friend, it
really is. Take care and have a wonderful thanksgiving to
you and everybody. Yet affordable. It's a fifty one at
fifty five KRC the talk station. Don't go I'd be
right back. Are a lot of voices on the radio.
Some are happy, so I'm.

Speaker 3 (13:04):
Not happy with you right now.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
How many are angry.

Speaker 2 (13:06):
I'm so very angry.

Speaker 3 (13:07):
I distrusted, I am angry. But all are heard.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
Will yours be one of them?

Speaker 3 (13:14):
To talk and I understand what you're saying to men, at,
to me, all kinds.

Speaker 1 (13:19):
Of talk, at to me, atop, to me, to all
kinds of people.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
They will address the issues.

Speaker 1 (13:25):
Defive PRC, the talk station.

Speaker 3 (13:29):
What's up, everybody, It's Peter Schrager.

Speaker 1 (13:31):
We're
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