Insight Imaging’s acquisitions bolster its ‘core-market strategy’

Insight Health Services Holdings (Insight Imaging) has completed its previously announced acquisition of eight imaging centers in the Phoenix, El Paso, TX, and Las Cruces, NM, areas from subsidiaries of MedQuest and Novant Health.

The acquisition brings the number of Insight Imaging’s “retail centers” to more than 60, according to Kip Hallman, president and CEO of the firm.

Retail centers are traditional freestanding imaging centers where Insight does all the billing and collections for payers, much like what RadNet has, Hallman said.

Insight Imaging can be found in 34 states but likes to keep its business in clusters. There are 13 centers in Phoenix and nine in California, as well as concentrations in Dallas/Fort Worth, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey.

“We practice a core-market strategy,” Hallman said. “Our goal is to try to be bigger in places we think are strategic markets for us.”

Going forward, Insight Imaging will continue to try to acquire additional imaging centers in the markets where they are already established, according to Hallman.

“The only time we’ll be looking to enter a new market is if we can enter it with a fairly significant presence,” he said. “Otherwise, it’s not our plan to buy a whole bunch of centers in a whole bunch of places. We don’t think that’s a smart strategy.”

Insight Imaging, based in Lake Forest, CA, has two other lines of businesses and is developing a fourth.

The second business line comprises 16 wholesale imaging centers operated in conjunction with hospitals. Insight provides the services, such as MRI, and billing is handled by the hospitals.

The firm’s third business line consists of 102 mobile imaging facilities, 88 MRI and 14 PET/CT, where Insight provides the scanner and technologist. The images are then sent to the hospital’s radiology group, where they handle the interpretation and billing. A fourth business line will be launched at the RSNA annual meeting in November. It will provide infrastructure in the form of RIS/PACS, physician portals, and billing and collection services for clients, Hallman said.