Business Opportunity...attention Attendings

[SleepIsGood]

A few investors including myself are interested in starting a Nighthawk/TeleRadiology service. We are from Illinois, but are considering having films read by Indian radiologists,etc.

This service would entail primarily helping out hospitals that need people to cover overnight and its intend is not to take away the day jobs of radiologists.

We would like to have a radiology attending on board that is willing to help and that is willing to partner.

Let me know via PM if interested.

Thanks

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[finallyMS3]

A few investors including myself are interested in starting a Nighthawk/TeleRadiology service. We are from Illinois, but are considering having films read by Indian radiologists,etc.

This service would entail primarily helping out hospitals that need people to cover overnight and its intend is not to take away the day jobs of radiologists.

We would like to have a radiology attending on board that is willing to help and that is willing to partner.

Let me know via PM if interested.

Thanks

so the question is, what is an anesthesiologist doing trolling in rads forum???

 

[dralex]

This service would entail primarily helping out hospitals that need people to cover overnight and its intend is not to take away the day jobs of radiologists.

Please don't do this. Or if you do, use US licensed physicians only.
Watch out for HIPAA issues too. By using foreign docs you become solely responsible for HIPAA violations and/or malpractice while the foreign doc is in the clear.

 

[dralex]

so the question is, what is an anesthesiologist doing trolling in rads forum???

It's all about the money not the medicine....
A real shame if you ask me. Foreign telemedicine (outsourcing) and "medical tourism" if they really take off will take a big bite out of US docs.
I feel bad for the kids who will be starting medical school soon. I sure hope there's something left for them to do.

 

[SleepIsGood]

Please don't do this. Or if you do, use US licensed physicians only.
Watch out for HIPAA issues too. By using foreign docs you become solely responsible for HIPAA violations and/or malpractice while the foreign doc is in the clear.

Hi there dralex-

Definitely would use only US licensed physicians. I value US trained and educated physicians since I'm one myself. Again, I would like to set one of these up only in rural areas or places where there is a real need. I dont believe in predatorial practices or trying to 'steal turf'.

 

[dralex]

Hi SleepIsGood,
Here's a little story of how I "almost" became a millionaire doing something like this.
A colleague of mine is buddies with a guy who runs a big hedge fund in NYC.
He also sits on the board of a large venture capital firm. He's got some money looking to be invested. My colleague and I wrote up a nice business model/plan for a "Medical Tourism" business. The VC guy loved the idea and offered a few bucks to get us started. I contracted with two hospitals in Thailand (my wife speaks Thai) and started working on one in Argentina (my neck of the woods). The CEO of the hospital in Thailand was very courteous and very happy that we would send him patients. We were going to start out with dental procedures and cosmetic surgery to see how things would go. In one of my conversations with the CEO he told me "Send me only easy cases." If something went wrong with the patient (like death...) they would take no further responsibility than refunding the money for the hospital stay/procedure.
That got me thinking, what the heck am I doing. How I can be such a sell out? My conscious could not allow me to send patients to some far off land and hope for the best. As a doctor myself (my wife is also) I couldn't sell out my US counterparts either. I left this venture four months ago.
Am I a ***** for doing this? You bet. Instead of me getting rich off of this someone else will. I sleep very well at night however.
I wish you the best of luck in your endeavour but please think of the ramifications of what you are about to do. I hope you do the right thing.
Best of luck in achieving your goals.

 

[SleepIsGood]

Hi SleepIsGood,
Here's a little story of how I "almost" became a millionaire doing something like this.
A colleague of mine is buddies with a guy who runs a big hedge fund in NYC.
He also sits on the board of a large venture capital firm. He's got some money looking to be invested. My colleague and I wrote up a nice business model/plan for a "Medical Tourism" business. The VC guy loved the idea and offered a few bucks to get us started. I contracted with two hospitals in Thailand (my wife speaks Thai) and started working on one in Argentina (my neck of the woods). The CEO of the hospital in Thailand was very courteous and very happy that we would send him patients. We were going to start out with dental procedures and cosmetic surgery to see how things would go. In one of my conversations with the CEO he told me "Send me only easy cases." If something went wrong with the patient (like death...) they would take no further responsibility than refunding the money for the hospital stay/procedure.
That got me thinking, what the heck am I doing. How I can be such a sell out? My conscious could not allow me to send patients to some far off land and hope for the best. As a doctor myself (my wife is also) I couldn't sell out my US counterparts either. I left this venture four months ago.
Am I a ***** for doing this? You bet. Instead of me getting rich off of this someone else will. I sleep very well at night however.
I wish you the best of luck in your endeavour but please think of the ramifications of what you are about to do. I hope you do the right thing.
Best of luck in achieving your goals.

Drlex

If I'm understanding you correctly...you were physically sending pts over to Thailand for these procedures? As in you referred them to Thailand from the US?

That seems awfully different from sending radiological studies in rural places or at night time off to a different country to be read preliminarily. As in for the big trauma cases etc in the middle of the night where ACUTE things need to be picked up STAT and there's no radiologist available. Secondly, all the prelim reads would be verified by a US radiologist.

I think this is filling in a void, unlike the business plan you were referring to where patients appeared to be translocated to a different country and where US surgeons were bypassed purposely.

 

[f_w]

Drlex
That seems awfully different from sending radiological studies in rural places or at night time off to a different country to be read preliminarily. As in for the big trauma cases etc in the middle of the night where ACUTE things need to be picked up STAT and there's no radiologist available. Secondly, all the prelim reads would be verified by a US radiologist.

http://www.nighthawkrad.net/
http://www.virtualrad.com/
http://www.consultingradiologists.com/rapidresponse_radiology.htm
http://www.emergencyradiologyservices.com/
.
.
.

What rock have you been living under ?

The telerad market at this point is pretty well carved up and in a process of consolidation (nighthawk, a publicly traded company just bought ERS for $63mil).

It doesn't sound like you have a grasp on the market and its regulatory and legal requirements.

There have been other geniusses before you who thought that it is just a swell idea to hire a bunch of indian radiologists and have them read US studies in a sweatshop in Bangalore (with the US licensed kingpin just signing the reports).

 

[eddieberetta]

Drlex

If I'm understanding you correctly...you were physically sending pts over to Thailand for these procedures? As in you referred them to Thailand from the US?

That seems awfully different from sending radiological studies in rural places or at night time off to a different country to be read preliminarily. As in for the big trauma cases etc in the middle of the night where ACUTE things need to be picked up STAT and there's no radiologist available. Secondly, all the prelim reads would be verified by a US radiologist.

I think this is filling in a void, unlike the business plan you were referring to where patients appeared to be translocated to a different country and where US surgeons were bypassed purposely.

1.) There are no trauma centres where scans get done and then sit unread because there are no radiologist on call. You do not understand the current radiology environment. Radiology groups are under tremendous pressure to issue short turnover FINAL reads to hasten patient flow, and the profession is responding with local nighthawk with certified radiologists.

What you are talking about MAY apply to some cross sectional imaging in remote non-trauma hospitals where there is a "gentleman's" agreement wherein the ED docs only call the (very tightly staffed) on-call radiologist if they are really worried or see something they can't deal with in the middle of the night.

I think the market for what you are offering is limited.

2.) In the model you are considering, the "prelim" reports would be used to make decisions about surgery, discharge, etc, or else would be pretty useless. Your company would face significant medicolegal exposure from any error.

3.) Your company would need to provide contingency support if there was a technical problem.

4.) There are major difficulties with credentialing and confidentiality issues.

Summary: Regardless of the ethical considerations, I would be very cautious about entering any business set up on this model. You will almost certainly be one of the "biggest pockets" and may face significant individual legal exposure. I would definitely consult with a healthcare attorney before getting involved. I also doubt there in the current environment there will be much marked for prelim reports by unknown-entity radiologists.

 

[dralex]

I never ended up sending any patients anywhere as I left before.
Our business was going to be targeted towards people who had no insurance and needed minor procedures that would have been too expensive for them.
The dental procedures are a great example of this.
This type of "Medical Tourism" is going to be a lot bigger here in the US (It's already done in lots of other countries like the Middle East).