Cost of an UItrascan ...

Go to a place that bulk bills? I don't think I've ever directly paid for an ultrasound (except one for my son, when he didn't have a medicare card yet, but it was reimbursed).

 

Nice. Do you expect it to keep growing at this rate?

 

Thank you @Fargo for mentioning PME on this thread... I bought as soon as you mentioned it and it has done well already. My only regret is that I only put 5k in...

@balwoges, thanks for sharing your problem on PC!

 

Fair enough! And I think the P/E ratio is crazy too....

 

I'll play devils avocado here, since my wife is a Sonographer (does the ultrasound images).

Whether you will pay (at her companies clinics) depending on who referred you, and what for. Also if you are on any kind of benefits/welfare, it will be bulk billed.

Why does it cost so much? My wife had $80,000 spent on her training by her workplace during her postgrad. The machine? $500,000. More if its portable when she is at the hospitals. Prior to your 5 minutes, her or an assistant wipes down the room and gets it ready, and reads the referral and prepares. Afterwards, she writes her report, which then goes to a Radiologist who is a specialist doctor.

Sonographers and to a bigger extent, Radiologists, are highly paid and the machines are expensive but I think justifiably so after seeing it all. Know the big MRI machines? If something goes wrong with the patient during the scan (eg heart attack) there is an emergency stop button. Press this, and it costs $200,000 to have the team come out and recalibrate.

I spend a LOT of time with them as they are all my wife's closest friends. I don't consider myself dumb, but I am easily the most dim witted person in the room whenever I am around by a factor of one trillion.

 

Recently booked Lil' No Mates for an MRI, 11.00 PM (The clinic doesn't open for anything else on the weekend).

In order to recoup the cost of equipment, you need to use the facilities 24/7, the labour cost is insignficant.

 

I understand the training of staff and the cost of the machines BUT I dont understand how can one service provider charges $275 [would not accept my Seniors Health Care card] and another $37 [who did accept my Seniors Health care card]?

The $37 was the balance of the account after Medicare benefit of $260.20

 

If 5k is the desired weighting I would tend to take a position with about 3k ,as less will make the commission as a % dear, if the price drops and the fundamentals haven't changed buy some more, if the price goes up you will have near a full allocation or wont need to add much to get it. Also you wont need to sell and pay tax when you go overweight. and need to rebalance.( For a given weighting you may end up with about the same amount of cash in your hand) An example is EML it is high risk but good potential tried to buy @ 1.70 the price kept going up so I decided I just have to take a small position with part of my allocation @2.30 and the aim to buy more when it drops, in the month since I bought it is up 30%, so I have the full allocation that I want to risk now. and can buy more if the price dips or buy a better option. For higher $ amounts I might still buy in 3 or more tranches of less than 5k, sometimes before and after reporting.

 

There are two radiology practices where I work . One bulk bills , one doesn’t .

Having see the results over the years I much prefer to send patients to the private billing practice due to more accurate results . In this situation , you get what you pay for .

Many of the local specialists just don’t trust the results of the bulk billing practice .

Cliff

 

The divergent pricing of medical procedures and imaging between providers.... there’s even a TED talk on it.
TED

 

Then isn't the difference fairly small? $275 vs $297.20?

Did you submit the $275 invoice to Medicare for you to receive a rebate? Won't you get $260.20 back?

 

Medicare Rebate $92.75, out of pocket $180.00 ...

 

Ah, I see... so the cost imposed by the service provider is similar, but the Medicare rebate is dramatically different. I wonder why that is? But it sounds like it's the government - in terms of variable rebates - to blame, not the service providers.

 

I understand the Medicare rebate depends on the actual Item Number of the service.

And yes while there can be differing charges for the same item number the Medicare rebate will be the same. I've had two ultrasounds recently by two separate providers. One cost $246.10 and the other $167.67. In both cases the Medicare rebate was $94.67. Same item number applied.

 

Might have worked this time , but if you'd gone with MIA ( Medical imaging Australia - an early version ) , you might not have been so lucky .

I remember talking to one of the radiologist at a practice near where I used to work and he said that , that local practice ( lean and mean ) used to earn as much as the entire company ( MIA ) made . They'd sold their practice to MIA for a handy sum and seen MIA waste so much money on the admin to run and oversee the company . I think they were biding their time until the non compete clauses ran out ...

Cliff

 

Given those machines cost about a million dollars and the infrastructure to support them good luck

 

It is a throw away Chinese machine, you can get your own good fake for about....ahhh....three fiddy

 

Not luck at all MIA business was diametric to PME. Wasn't MIA mindlessly buying businesses. PME provides a seamless way to run the business fast and efficiently. MIA was a diifferent type of business, capital heavy, falling revenue growth it was more like realestate. Compumedic is more comparable. PME is a scalable software developer providing RIS (radiology information services),picture archiving and communication servicings , and advanced visualization, streamlining medical practices. eliminates office tasks and increases office efficiency. It is an end to end service from, hardware accounting, reporting, staff management and training.