An Iowa hospital system has picked LucidHealth as its new radiology services provider following a competitive bidding process.
MercyOne will utilize the Columbus, Ohio-based imaging company in its Northeast service area that includes two acute care hospitals and 40 clinics. Hospital leaders decided to switch from the old partner—Milwaukee Radiologists Limited—which was a remnant from Mercy’s previous days as part of Wisconsin-based Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare.
The switchover officially took place in July, with LucidHealth announcing the new contract on Aug. 11.
“The transition went very smoothly and I’m very happy with how quickly we were able to integrate all of our systems. It takes a lot of work to switch radiology groups,” Kris Messner, director of imaging at MercyOne Northeast Iowa, told Radiology Business Wednesday. “We look forward to the future. We think they’re a group that can help us grow our service lines and provide exceptional care for our patients.”
Meanwhile, four local radiologists who were part of the previous arrangement—Meg Krishnan, Kevin He, Emil Hurst and Robert Filippone—will continue serving MercyOne patients under the new agreement. In partnership with those local docs, Lucid is supplying 30 additional licensed and credentialed radiologists to provide 24/7 reads remotely using the company’s RadAssist platform.
Hospital leaders said their willingness to work with the aforementioned physicians was a factor in the decision.
“In some fashion or another, all radiologists that we had local will stay local and stay part of our coverage, which was important for our community, and our patients and their continuity of care,” Messner added.
All told, LucidHealth employs more than 200 radiologists providing care in five states, according to its website.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.