Comment by lostlogin
3 hours ago
There are big costs. The hardware, the facility (RF cage and chillers), power, water, staff, RIS/PACS etc etc.
I can’t see how you can do it for $50. Does the ‘universal healthcare’ bit mean that the government is paying most the bill and it’s $50 out of pocket?
Yes, $50 was a rough out-of-pocket estimate, the amortized cost per scan for operation alone is probably on the order of hundreds of dollars per scan, assuming high utilization.
One funny thing about MRIs is the magnet is always on, so there could be some clever ways to reduce costs running them after hours.
> there could be some clever ways to reduce costs running them after hours.
It seems like a dedicated round the clock facility housing at least dozens of MRI machines ought to offer significant economies of scale. I wonder if I'm wrong about that or if there's some other reason we don't see this approach taken by governments.
The staffing costs then skyrocket. 1.5x or double time. However, the main obstacle is a lack of staff. Good staff are hard to find and worth what they cost. And they usually don't want to work out of hours. The economies of scale are interesting. Eg PACS/RIS cost very little more when you increase scans done, and rent is a fixed cost. The best thing that happens are you increase scanners at a the management of no-shows. Patients fail to turn up regularly (a 'did not arrive', DNA). With more imaging going on, you just grab the next available patient, the gap ends up later on, then you make a new booking. The record at my site is 6 DNAs and no slots missed. I run a small MRI service.
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