The nation’s largest physician-led radiology practice completed its latest round of growth equity funding, raising $200 million earmarked for evidence-based clinical programs and expansion.
El Segundo, California-based Radiology Partners (RP) solicited investments from both new and old investors, partnering with venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates and Future Fund—otherwise known as the wealth fund for the Australian Government.
“It’s our view that the consolidation in radiology is beginning to accelerate,” said RP CEO Richard Whitney, in an interview with Radiology Business. “We want to make sure we have RP positioned with the appropriate financial resources to help us lead the way in that consolidation—this means more capital for growth but we also need to be making significant investments to manage that growth.”
These investments include scaling operations to properly support more than 350 radiologists and developing and implementing evidence-based clinical programs. While some of the $200 million will go toward necessary administrative hires after a year of steady expansion, it’s the quality improvement programs that showcase the advantage of a large radiology practice like RP, according to Whitney.
One program centers on ensuring follow-up recommendations are properly distributed and complied with.
“It’s one thing for a radiologist to add value by making the right recommendation in terms of what needs to happen next, but of course in our disjointed and uncoordinated healthcare system that recommendation doesn’t always get managed and followed through,” said Whitney. “We are taking responsibility for ensuring these downstream processes actually happen.”
RP is also prioritizing clinical data tracking and reporting metrics, investing heavily in the IT infrastructure required to produce timely and actionable data. Those resources are often missing from radiology departments and imaging centers, but they will become more important with the heightened demand for value in care and increased reporting requirements introduced in the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA).
“You have to be able to define [quality], and you have to be able to measure it,” said Whitney. “Those are two important ingredients to achieving breakthrough improvements in clinical value.”
Improvements in radiology can have an outsize effect on the health system as a whole, because of its centrality—almost every patient that moves through a hospital is impacted by radiology in some way. Radiology has also become an expensive part of the healthcare system—costing more than $200 billion per year—and quality improvement initiatives can radiate outwards, providing added value elsewhere.
“That’s the underpinning of why we are seeking to build scale in radiology, we see it as an opportunity to impact clinical care both in radiology and as it pertains to radiology impact on the healthcare system,” said Whitney.