August 21, 2025 • 21 mins
Jeff Thomas sits down with Dr. Howard G. Berger, CEO and President of RadNet. RadNet’s mission — comprehensive radiology solutions — aligns with the future of healthcare.They are the only radiology provider with the resources to create greater opportunities for their strategic partners. They leverage our national profile and a broad portfolio of clinical and technical services to support best outcomes.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is CEOs you should know.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Welcome to CEOs you should know. This is Jeff Thomas,
executive vice president with iHeartMedia in Los Angeles, and I
am here with doctor Howard Berger, who forty years ago
founded Radnet, a leader in outpatient imaging. Today, radnet is
a network of over four hundred centers eight states, eleven
thousand plus employees performing over ten million imaging procedures a year.
(00:33):
On a personal note, medical imaging saved my life. I'm
going to get into that in a little while, but
first welcome doctor Berger to the program.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Thank you, Jeff, pleasure to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
You have had tremendous success with Radnet, started it over
forty years ago. What inspired you to get into the
medical imaging business and really like to take it to
the next level.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Well, my training dating back to the seventies was in
medical imaging at the very early onset of the transition
from conventional X rays into imaging procedures starting with nuclear medicine,
and I found that a very exciting new specialty to
(01:13):
go into, and with a background that I had had
in mathematics and physics slash science, it seemed to be
a good fit. And since it was so early in
the development of imaging, I felt that there was going
to be a niche for this, that was the future,
although I don't think I could have ever predicted that
(01:34):
it would have evolved to where imaging is today. So
was inspired because it was an exciting technology that was transformative,
I think in the way that we could approach diagnostic
imaging or diagnosis in general.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
And we fast forward to right now. There have been
so many advancements in diagnostic imaging, but the newest one
two words on everybody's mind that everybody's talking about in business,
artificial intelligence. Tell me about how radnet has really taken
a leadership role using artificial intelligence.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
I think artificial intelligence, which has burst onto the scene
not because people weren't doing it or thinking about it,
perhaps as much as ten or even twenty years ago,
but the new technology advances in chip and mostly in
computer and algorithmic design has allowed an acceleration of these
(02:32):
tools that nobody probably was predicting, maybe as much as
five to seven years ago. Then with the advent of
chat GPT, in addition to the clinical applications that we
adopted about five years ago two years ago, we saw
the potential impact of from an operational standpoint of what
(02:56):
chat GPT could do to help make the whole experience
that much. I won't say enjoyable, because I don't think
anybody really likes going to a doctor's office, or particularly
one where you're getting a diagnostic test and you're uncertain
of the outcome. But making it less onerous, less intimidating
(03:19):
and complicated, and I think that, indeed is the future,
not just in diagnostic imaging, but in all of healthcare.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
And I think also from the standpoint of imaging being
more accessible to patients, to people that really need it,
I know you're doing a lot for underserved communities that
aren't really like leaning into imaging and maybe missing opportunities
to better their health outcome.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Yes, I think the key for the future of diagnostic
imaging and for healthcare has to be one where it
embraces really two concepts. One is, as you've mentioned, access,
I think if people are going to take advantage of
these tools, making it easier for them to take either
(04:05):
less time off of work or to make it less
difficult to find a place to do quality diagnostic imaging
is essential. The other is educating the population about the
availability of these tools to lead to earlier diagnostic results
(04:26):
that can have a major impact on their own lifetime.
In their own lifetime as well as to the cost
of health care. So these tools, if you will, I think,
will change the face of healthcare, and diagnostic imaging are
one of those that can lead the way.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
So MRIs scans, mammograms, all the things that we do
for things like breast cancer, prostate cancer, lung cancer. Give
me some specific examples of how you're making those more
accessible to real people out there who may not know
where to turn and maybe not for example, doing screenings
for breast cancer.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Well, I think that's where the education part of it
comes in, which is a responsibility not just for the
radiology community or the diagnostic imaging community, but the whole
healthcare community. And this shouldn't be looked at as just
screening for cancer. It should be screening for diabetes, screening
for cardiovascular disease, screening for other metabolic diseases. Where the
(05:27):
tools that we have in the technology, which are generally
non invasive, are capable because of artificial intelligence, of seeing
the changes in the body, whether it's at the tissue
level or the molecular level. Far earlier than we were
ever able to do it before. And the amount of
data that we are able to generate has to be
(05:50):
managed by sophisticated computer systems to process that data and
make it intelligible. So when we say artificial intelligence, it's
really about it being intelligible given the amount of data
that we produce. And I think what we're trying to
advocate here, and we need everybody to lean into this,
(06:11):
not just you know, patients, but their doctors, the insurance
companies about early screening, early detection, and making these tools
part of their insurance program so that it's not just
something they're doing that becomes a little bit more difficult
to understand, but something that becomes a routine part of
(06:33):
some kind of an annual or bi annual maybe every
five years. There's other kinds of cancers and other kinds
of diseases that we can talk about that all have
one common theme, and that is the earlier diagnose them,
the better the outcome and lowering the overall cost both
to the to the health system as well as to
(06:56):
the individual.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
And then I think a lot of it has led
giving people the tools to be able to take their
health care into their own hands and really empower people
to be proactive about healthcare and not just wait until
it's too late or whatever the disease has progressed beyond
what they can be helped with.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Yes, well, you can be helped at anywhere along that journey. Obviously,
the later you start in that journey, the more difficult
the outcome you may face. But this is where I
think everybody plays a very important role in this, and
I'm again going to go back to education. At Radnet,
(07:38):
we've started doing that with artificial intelligence, primarily in breast
cancer detection. And right now it's not a reimbursed service,
if you will, So we've gone out to our patients
and offered them the ability at a fairly nominal price
to pay out of pocket for something that can detect
breast cancer, perhaps two to five years earlier than the
(08:01):
best radiologist was able to in the past. But it's
being aware of this and not being afraid of it.
You know. Unfortunately, artificial intelligence can be used for good
or for bad, and we hear about that every day.
I was just listening to the news the other day
and I think probably all saw Marco Rubio, you know,
(08:22):
whose voice they had put on some sort of artificial intelligence,
and it was him talking, and if you didn't know better,
you would swear that it was him. So artificial intelligence
is scary to a lot of people because of the
lack of awareness, but particularly in healthcare, it is an
(08:44):
agent for change. It is an agent for good, and
it needs to be embraced by not only patients, but
by the healthcare community itself and doctors are you know,
like a lot of people resistant to change. Got to
get past some of our old habits and patterns and
embrace something that is the future. But the future is
(09:08):
here today. We don't have to keep putting it off
and kicking that can down the road. These tools are
remarkably efficient and capable of being a real benefit to society.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
This has to be tremendously satisfying to you, not just
from a financial and business standpoint, but a personal standpoint
as well.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
I think you've hit the nail on the head. I've
been doing this for a long time and I don't
think I've ever been as excited about how the future
of diagnostic imaging can be so impactful on healthcare and
population health. And it is truly transformative, and I think
it's a heavy lift because there's a lot of infrastructure
(09:48):
and resistance to change, as I mentioned it, but once
you see the change, once you embrace it. And if
I can add another note, this is really coming at
a very important time from the standpoint of other issues
going in our social framework, one of those being the
(10:09):
difficulty of finding labor, the cost of labor going up,
and the ability for taking these tools and making the
workforce more efficient, more accurate, and to better enable that
workforce to handle the demand that we have, which is
I think probably everybody's frustration on some level with healthcare
(10:32):
that when you want to get in and see a
doctor and you've said, you know you need some other
diagnostic work, whether it's a specialist or diagnostic imaging, you know,
the wait times are just unacceptable. It's not good medicine.
Artificial intelligence fits kind of into the model that I've
tried to imbue Radnet with, and that is good medicine
(10:55):
is good business, okay, And embracing these tools, being prepared
to make the investments in them and force the system
to change is not only I think better for the system,
but it may wind up being an important part of
an existential requirement that we had to meet the demand
(11:16):
and create the benefits that all of this new technology
is capable of doing. It's a very exciting time to
be looking deep into the body and being able to
see things that you never could before.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
I always believe that great leaders in business have overcome
obstacles and have had challenges that other people may not
have been able to overcome, but they've found a way
to overcome those challenges. I'm interested in hearing a challenge
or two that you've had to overcome over the years
that maybe seemed insurmountable, but you did it.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
I think fundamentally, it's believing in what you're doing, both
from the importance for your company and for your patients.
And you run into obstacles, and I think you've probably
heard the term we've seen the enemy, and it is us,
(12:14):
or it is ourselves, and really we're our own worst
enemy because we're all resistant to change. Change is uncomfortable,
and I don't care whether you're talking about change and
moving from one location to another, or changing a job,
or changing some of your own personal behavior. Change is difficult,
(12:34):
and so overcoming that obstacle as a matter of believing
that what you're doing is the right thing, and that
people will eventually adopt it and see it and get
past their own prejudices to create a better outcome for everybody.
These kind of tools are really not just better for
the patient, but it's better for all the people delivering
(12:57):
healthcare because you've become in bold in by how good
these tools can be and how impactful they can be
on people's lives.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
So that brings me to my personal story which I
want to share with you. Eight years ago, I was
diagnosed after multiple MRIs endoscopic ultrasounds CT scans with a
solid mass on my pancreas. Solid mass on your pancreas
nine out of ten times turns into malignant cancer within
one year, and diagnosis is really grim once you're diagnosed
(13:27):
with pancreatic cancer. So when I say it saved my life,
these imaging procedures literally save my life. And my plea
really for everyone who's listening is don't be afraid of technology,
take your health into your own hands, work with your
medical providers, but really use all the tools that are
available now to take advantage of that.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
I think people want to use the tools, Jeff. It's
really part of the education that even the physicians really
need to embrace more too, because this this is all
new territory, and unfortunately you've mentioned one which has a
particularly bad outcome for most people.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
It does, but it's also given me a different outlook
and being able to tell people it's scary when you
hear things or when you feel like something's happening to you,
but the reality is there is a way to get
beyond that.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Well, the way to get beyond it is really going
back to early detection or earlier perception. And so people
will tell you maybe there are things that you can do,
whether it's dietary or behavioral, to help avoid getting sick.
But you know, I'll use the example of smoking. How
(14:44):
many decades as has been where it's been proven beyond
any reasonable doubt that smoking leads to lung cancer. Seventy
five percent of the people with lung cancer are smokers
that are at risk. And I'll give you a statistic
which is perhaps amplifying what I'm trying to say here.
The United States Public Health Service has identified that approximately
(15:09):
fifteen million Americans are at risk for lung cancer because
of smoking or history. The history can be familial, it
can be smoking, it could be exposure to other cancer
causing elements, particularly for people who have served in the
(15:30):
armed forces. Of that fifteen million people that have been
identified at risk, there is a program called low Dose
lung CT scanning for lung cancer that is reimbursed. You
have to go through unfortunately somewhat cumbersome process to get
the approval to get the scan But of the fifteen
(15:51):
million people that should be coming in for this testing,
not just once but probably on an annual or annual basis,
only less than six percent of the people in the
country are getting lung cancer screening. And there are plenty
of other countries, one in particular the United Kingdom, because
(16:13):
of their national health program and that they have all
the medical records, they've identified about one point one million
people and they now have a campaign to encourage everybody
to go in. But it's a national healthcare system, so
it's paid for and they are slowly raising the number
of people. They're up to probably thirty thirty five percent,
(16:34):
and their goal is to be at seventy five or
eighty percent within about the next three years. But it's
an active campaign. We have nothing like that here in
the United States. And despite the fact that this has
a potential enormous impact on saving somebody's life. I don't
mean just getting them earlier into chemotherapy and other treatment,
(16:54):
but actually curing them. And I have a personal family
experience where somebody were just serendipitously came in for a
chest X ray, noticed the mask. She was a long
term smoker, had stopped smoking for eighteen years, but that
doesn't eliminate the effects that smoking can have on your body.
(17:15):
It's a slow growing process that accelerates as it gets
more and more malignant. They found it. They took out
a portion of her long and very small portion of
it for the most part of an outpatient procedure, and
she right now has a clean bill of health as
a cure. Only time will tell to be certain of that.
But the fact remains that had she delayed, okay, getting
(17:39):
some kind of attention to this, which she would have,
but she had come in because she had a persistent
cough that had nothing to do with this lesion, was
concerned about having pneumonia, and lo and behold, it was found.
But she was somebody who would be one of the
fifteen million people that should have been coming in and getting.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Screening right on a regular basis, and.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
So we probably all know somebody that they have fit
in that kind of category. And maybe it's not lung cancer,
maybe it's breast cancer, maybe it's a prostate cancer. These
diseases are out there, they're becoming more prevalent, and it's
the burden of the healthcare community to find ways to
bring not just make these diagnoses, but bring people into
(18:20):
the system so that you can make these diagnoses earlier.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
So forty plus years after you started radnet, you could
easily ride off into the sunset. You have a wildly
successful business. Are you still as engaged now as you
were when you started and excited about what the future holds.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
That's a great question and the answer to that is yes,
but differently than it was when I was bringing the
business up from a single center that I started here
in Los Angeles forty years ago to where it is today.
But that excitement and that effort that I put forth
every day is really more thinking about the future of
how diagnostic imaging and radiology can be embraced and be
(19:02):
so impactful, and how do we become the agent of change,
if you will. So it's not the day to day
operational issues that I was more involved in. And it's
not even about the vision, it's about making the vision happen.
And so that's what's exciting about it and keeps me going.
And I'm probably in some respects more energized than I
have ever been because the potential impact of what we're
(19:23):
talking is just almost incalculable in terms of benefits that
I can provide. And we need to recognize that. And
Radnet is doing this that this is not just here
in the United States, but it's globally. You know, cancer
is cancer. If I were to give you some of
the statistics. For example, one, there are countries in Africa
(19:44):
where the mortality rate from breast cancer is seventy percent
or more once the diagnosis is made. Okay, that number
is almost reversed here in the United States because we
do such a good job, but could be doing better
for earlier detection even than we are right now. So
the kind of things that we're talking about, and because
(20:06):
of new technology and artificial intelligence, these could be global
programs that could be performed without necessarily overstretching the resources,
the human resources which are still necessary to make these
programs successful.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
And the great thing is you've been able to see
the actual fruits of your labor and the improved outcomes.
And it sounds like we still have a long way
to go, but we are well on the way too,
at least getting more and more tools through AI and
other means for people to have access. I urge everybody
to take their health into their own hands, to use
(20:44):
the great tools that we have in front of us.
And I thank you so much for all that you've
done for people's healthcare. When I think about it, if
you're doing over ten million imaging procedures a year with radnet,
that's like McDonald's, you know, half a billion served over
the course of the last forty years. Amazing, great work.
Thank you so much, doctor Burger for being our guest
on CEOs you should Know today.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Thank you for having me, Jeff, and particularly being enthusiastic
both from a personal standpoint and from a population health
standpoint of giving the advice that you did.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Doctor Berger. If people want to find out more about
what you do, where can they go?
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Please visit the radnet website radnet dot com and that
will help guide you to a number of different links
that can help answer your questions.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Listen to CEOs you should know on the iHeartRadio app
This is CEOs you should know.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Welcome to CEOs you should know. This is Jeff Thomas,
executive vice president with iHeartMedia in Los Angeles, and I
am here with doctor Howard Berger, who forty years ago
founded Radnet, a leader in outpatient imaging. Today, radnet is
a network of over four hundred centers eight states, eleven
thousand plus employees performing over ten million imaging procedures a year.
(00:33):
On a personal note, medical imaging saved my life. I'm
going to get into that in a little while, but
first welcome doctor Berger to the program.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Thank you, Jeff, pleasure to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
You have had tremendous success with Radnet, started it over
forty years ago. What inspired you to get into the
medical imaging business and really like to take it to
the next level.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Well, my training dating back to the seventies was in
medical imaging at the very early onset of the transition
from conventional X rays into imaging procedures starting with nuclear medicine,
and I found that a very exciting new specialty to
(01:13):
go into, and with a background that I had had
in mathematics and physics slash science, it seemed to be
a good fit. And since it was so early in
the development of imaging, I felt that there was going
to be a niche for this, that was the future,
although I don't think I could have ever predicted that
(01:34):
it would have evolved to where imaging is today. So
was inspired because it was an exciting technology that was transformative,
I think in the way that we could approach diagnostic
imaging or diagnosis in general.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
And we fast forward to right now. There have been
so many advancements in diagnostic imaging, but the newest one
two words on everybody's mind that everybody's talking about in business,
artificial intelligence. Tell me about how radnet has really taken
a leadership role using artificial intelligence.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
I think artificial intelligence, which has burst onto the scene
not because people weren't doing it or thinking about it,
perhaps as much as ten or even twenty years ago,
but the new technology advances in chip and mostly in
computer and algorithmic design has allowed an acceleration of these
(02:32):
tools that nobody probably was predicting, maybe as much as
five to seven years ago. Then with the advent of
chat GPT, in addition to the clinical applications that we
adopted about five years ago two years ago, we saw
the potential impact of from an operational standpoint of what
(02:56):
chat GPT could do to help make the whole experience
that much. I won't say enjoyable, because I don't think
anybody really likes going to a doctor's office, or particularly
one where you're getting a diagnostic test and you're uncertain
of the outcome. But making it less onerous, less intimidating
(03:19):
and complicated, and I think that, indeed is the future,
not just in diagnostic imaging, but in all of healthcare.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
And I think also from the standpoint of imaging being
more accessible to patients, to people that really need it,
I know you're doing a lot for underserved communities that
aren't really like leaning into imaging and maybe missing opportunities
to better their health outcome.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Yes, I think the key for the future of diagnostic
imaging and for healthcare has to be one where it
embraces really two concepts. One is, as you've mentioned, access,
I think if people are going to take advantage of
these tools, making it easier for them to take either
(04:05):
less time off of work or to make it less
difficult to find a place to do quality diagnostic imaging
is essential. The other is educating the population about the
availability of these tools to lead to earlier diagnostic results
(04:26):
that can have a major impact on their own lifetime.
In their own lifetime as well as to the cost
of health care. So these tools, if you will, I think,
will change the face of healthcare, and diagnostic imaging are
one of those that can lead the way.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
So MRIs scans, mammograms, all the things that we do
for things like breast cancer, prostate cancer, lung cancer. Give
me some specific examples of how you're making those more
accessible to real people out there who may not know
where to turn and maybe not for example, doing screenings
for breast cancer.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Well, I think that's where the education part of it
comes in, which is a responsibility not just for the
radiology community or the diagnostic imaging community, but the whole
healthcare community. And this shouldn't be looked at as just
screening for cancer. It should be screening for diabetes, screening
for cardiovascular disease, screening for other metabolic diseases. Where the
(05:27):
tools that we have in the technology, which are generally
non invasive, are capable because of artificial intelligence, of seeing
the changes in the body, whether it's at the tissue
level or the molecular level. Far earlier than we were
ever able to do it before. And the amount of
data that we are able to generate has to be
(05:50):
managed by sophisticated computer systems to process that data and
make it intelligible. So when we say artificial intelligence, it's
really about it being intelligible given the amount of data
that we produce. And I think what we're trying to
advocate here, and we need everybody to lean into this,
(06:11):
not just you know, patients, but their doctors, the insurance
companies about early screening, early detection, and making these tools
part of their insurance program so that it's not just
something they're doing that becomes a little bit more difficult
to understand, but something that becomes a routine part of
(06:33):
some kind of an annual or bi annual maybe every
five years. There's other kinds of cancers and other kinds
of diseases that we can talk about that all have
one common theme, and that is the earlier diagnose them,
the better the outcome and lowering the overall cost both
to the to the health system as well as to
(06:56):
the individual.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
And then I think a lot of it has led
giving people the tools to be able to take their
health care into their own hands and really empower people
to be proactive about healthcare and not just wait until
it's too late or whatever the disease has progressed beyond
what they can be helped with.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Yes, well, you can be helped at anywhere along that journey. Obviously,
the later you start in that journey, the more difficult
the outcome you may face. But this is where I
think everybody plays a very important role in this, and
I'm again going to go back to education. At Radnet,
(07:38):
we've started doing that with artificial intelligence, primarily in breast
cancer detection. And right now it's not a reimbursed service,
if you will, So we've gone out to our patients
and offered them the ability at a fairly nominal price
to pay out of pocket for something that can detect
breast cancer, perhaps two to five years earlier than the
(08:01):
best radiologist was able to in the past. But it's
being aware of this and not being afraid of it.
You know. Unfortunately, artificial intelligence can be used for good
or for bad, and we hear about that every day.
I was just listening to the news the other day
and I think probably all saw Marco Rubio, you know,
(08:22):
whose voice they had put on some sort of artificial intelligence,
and it was him talking, and if you didn't know better,
you would swear that it was him. So artificial intelligence
is scary to a lot of people because of the
lack of awareness, but particularly in healthcare, it is an
(08:44):
agent for change. It is an agent for good, and
it needs to be embraced by not only patients, but
by the healthcare community itself and doctors are you know,
like a lot of people resistant to change. Got to
get past some of our old habits and patterns and
embrace something that is the future. But the future is
(09:08):
here today. We don't have to keep putting it off
and kicking that can down the road. These tools are
remarkably efficient and capable of being a real benefit to society.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
This has to be tremendously satisfying to you, not just
from a financial and business standpoint, but a personal standpoint
as well.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
I think you've hit the nail on the head. I've
been doing this for a long time and I don't
think I've ever been as excited about how the future
of diagnostic imaging can be so impactful on healthcare and
population health. And it is truly transformative, and I think
it's a heavy lift because there's a lot of infrastructure
(09:48):
and resistance to change, as I mentioned it, but once
you see the change, once you embrace it. And if
I can add another note, this is really coming at
a very important time from the standpoint of other issues
going in our social framework, one of those being the
(10:09):
difficulty of finding labor, the cost of labor going up,
and the ability for taking these tools and making the
workforce more efficient, more accurate, and to better enable that
workforce to handle the demand that we have, which is
I think probably everybody's frustration on some level with healthcare
(10:32):
that when you want to get in and see a
doctor and you've said, you know you need some other
diagnostic work, whether it's a specialist or diagnostic imaging, you know,
the wait times are just unacceptable. It's not good medicine.
Artificial intelligence fits kind of into the model that I've
tried to imbue Radnet with, and that is good medicine
(10:55):
is good business, okay, And embracing these tools, being prepared
to make the investments in them and force the system
to change is not only I think better for the system,
but it may wind up being an important part of
an existential requirement that we had to meet the demand
(11:16):
and create the benefits that all of this new technology
is capable of doing. It's a very exciting time to
be looking deep into the body and being able to
see things that you never could before.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
I always believe that great leaders in business have overcome
obstacles and have had challenges that other people may not
have been able to overcome, but they've found a way
to overcome those challenges. I'm interested in hearing a challenge
or two that you've had to overcome over the years
that maybe seemed insurmountable, but you did it.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
I think fundamentally, it's believing in what you're doing, both
from the importance for your company and for your patients.
And you run into obstacles, and I think you've probably
heard the term we've seen the enemy, and it is us,
(12:14):
or it is ourselves, and really we're our own worst
enemy because we're all resistant to change. Change is uncomfortable,
and I don't care whether you're talking about change and
moving from one location to another, or changing a job,
or changing some of your own personal behavior. Change is difficult,
(12:34):
and so overcoming that obstacle as a matter of believing
that what you're doing is the right thing, and that
people will eventually adopt it and see it and get
past their own prejudices to create a better outcome for everybody.
These kind of tools are really not just better for
the patient, but it's better for all the people delivering
(12:57):
healthcare because you've become in bold in by how good
these tools can be and how impactful they can be
on people's lives.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
So that brings me to my personal story which I
want to share with you. Eight years ago, I was
diagnosed after multiple MRIs endoscopic ultrasounds CT scans with a
solid mass on my pancreas. Solid mass on your pancreas
nine out of ten times turns into malignant cancer within
one year, and diagnosis is really grim once you're diagnosed
(13:27):
with pancreatic cancer. So when I say it saved my life,
these imaging procedures literally save my life. And my plea
really for everyone who's listening is don't be afraid of technology,
take your health into your own hands, work with your
medical providers, but really use all the tools that are
available now to take advantage of that.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
I think people want to use the tools, Jeff. It's
really part of the education that even the physicians really
need to embrace more too, because this this is all
new territory, and unfortunately you've mentioned one which has a
particularly bad outcome for most people.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
It does, but it's also given me a different outlook
and being able to tell people it's scary when you
hear things or when you feel like something's happening to you,
but the reality is there is a way to get
beyond that.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Well, the way to get beyond it is really going
back to early detection or earlier perception. And so people
will tell you maybe there are things that you can do,
whether it's dietary or behavioral, to help avoid getting sick.
But you know, I'll use the example of smoking. How
(14:44):
many decades as has been where it's been proven beyond
any reasonable doubt that smoking leads to lung cancer. Seventy
five percent of the people with lung cancer are smokers
that are at risk. And I'll give you a statistic
which is perhaps amplifying what I'm trying to say here.
The United States Public Health Service has identified that approximately
(15:09):
fifteen million Americans are at risk for lung cancer because
of smoking or history. The history can be familial, it
can be smoking, it could be exposure to other cancer
causing elements, particularly for people who have served in the
(15:30):
armed forces. Of that fifteen million people that have been
identified at risk, there is a program called low Dose
lung CT scanning for lung cancer that is reimbursed. You
have to go through unfortunately somewhat cumbersome process to get
the approval to get the scan But of the fifteen
(15:51):
million people that should be coming in for this testing,
not just once but probably on an annual or annual basis,
only less than six percent of the people in the
country are getting lung cancer screening. And there are plenty
of other countries, one in particular the United Kingdom, because
(16:13):
of their national health program and that they have all
the medical records, they've identified about one point one million
people and they now have a campaign to encourage everybody
to go in. But it's a national healthcare system, so
it's paid for and they are slowly raising the number
of people. They're up to probably thirty thirty five percent,
(16:34):
and their goal is to be at seventy five or
eighty percent within about the next three years. But it's
an active campaign. We have nothing like that here in
the United States. And despite the fact that this has
a potential enormous impact on saving somebody's life. I don't
mean just getting them earlier into chemotherapy and other treatment,
(16:54):
but actually curing them. And I have a personal family
experience where somebody were just serendipitously came in for a
chest X ray, noticed the mask. She was a long
term smoker, had stopped smoking for eighteen years, but that
doesn't eliminate the effects that smoking can have on your body.
(17:15):
It's a slow growing process that accelerates as it gets
more and more malignant. They found it. They took out
a portion of her long and very small portion of
it for the most part of an outpatient procedure, and
she right now has a clean bill of health as
a cure. Only time will tell to be certain of that.
But the fact remains that had she delayed, okay, getting
(17:39):
some kind of attention to this, which she would have,
but she had come in because she had a persistent
cough that had nothing to do with this lesion, was
concerned about having pneumonia, and lo and behold, it was found.
But she was somebody who would be one of the
fifteen million people that should have been coming in and getting.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Screening right on a regular basis, and.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
So we probably all know somebody that they have fit
in that kind of category. And maybe it's not lung cancer,
maybe it's breast cancer, maybe it's a prostate cancer. These
diseases are out there, they're becoming more prevalent, and it's
the burden of the healthcare community to find ways to
bring not just make these diagnoses, but bring people into
(18:20):
the system so that you can make these diagnoses earlier.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
So forty plus years after you started radnet, you could
easily ride off into the sunset. You have a wildly
successful business. Are you still as engaged now as you
were when you started and excited about what the future holds.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
That's a great question and the answer to that is yes,
but differently than it was when I was bringing the
business up from a single center that I started here
in Los Angeles forty years ago to where it is today.
But that excitement and that effort that I put forth
every day is really more thinking about the future of
how diagnostic imaging and radiology can be embraced and be
(19:02):
so impactful, and how do we become the agent of change,
if you will. So it's not the day to day
operational issues that I was more involved in. And it's
not even about the vision, it's about making the vision happen.
And so that's what's exciting about it and keeps me going.
And I'm probably in some respects more energized than I
have ever been because the potential impact of what we're
(19:23):
talking is just almost incalculable in terms of benefits that
I can provide. And we need to recognize that. And
Radnet is doing this that this is not just here
in the United States, but it's globally. You know, cancer
is cancer. If I were to give you some of
the statistics. For example, one, there are countries in Africa
(19:44):
where the mortality rate from breast cancer is seventy percent
or more once the diagnosis is made. Okay, that number
is almost reversed here in the United States because we
do such a good job, but could be doing better
for earlier detection even than we are right now. So
the kind of things that we're talking about, and because
(20:06):
of new technology and artificial intelligence, these could be global
programs that could be performed without necessarily overstretching the resources,
the human resources which are still necessary to make these
programs successful.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
And the great thing is you've been able to see
the actual fruits of your labor and the improved outcomes.
And it sounds like we still have a long way
to go, but we are well on the way too,
at least getting more and more tools through AI and
other means for people to have access. I urge everybody
to take their health into their own hands, to use
(20:44):
the great tools that we have in front of us.
And I thank you so much for all that you've
done for people's healthcare. When I think about it, if
you're doing over ten million imaging procedures a year with radnet,
that's like McDonald's, you know, half a billion served over
the course of the last forty years. Amazing, great work.
Thank you so much, doctor Burger for being our guest
on CEOs you should Know today.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Thank you for having me, Jeff, and particularly being enthusiastic
both from a personal standpoint and from a population health
standpoint of giving the advice that you did.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Doctor Berger. If people want to find out more about
what you do, where can they go?
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Please visit the radnet website radnet dot com and that
will help guide you to a number of different links
that can help answer your questions.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Listen to CEOs you should know on the iHeartRadio app
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