The primary reason hospitals joint venture with OIA is to utilize our experience and expertise to stop patient leakage and avoid payor steerage. However, some hospitals partner with OIA a) to increase patient and referring physician satisfaction, b) for capital reasons or c) to expedite ambulatory growth into new communities.

The formation of any joint venture is designed to provide an organization with existing expertise it otherwise must administer or possibly even develop on its own. While hospitals are often quite successful in managing their inpatient facilities, they struggle in an outpatient environment. Centralized scheduling, bureaucracy, split billing and other hurdles make it very difficult for hospitals to compete in this environment. OIA pairs its entrepreneurial expertise with its partner’s brand and reputation to develop a center that can compete for business on par with other competitive entities.

OIA is the only national, entrepreneurially owned outpatient imaging center owner/operator whose primary business model is the joint venture model.  There are certainly other imaging center operators in joint ventures, but to OIA, joint ventures were our model and the basis for our foundation in 2000.  With this unique perspective, hospitals can partner with OIA and be fully confident that one of its service lines is being managed daily in the best interests of the hospital and with a focus a hospital could never provide on its own.

Currently, OIA operates sixty-one centers across fourteen markets in eleven states.  A sample of our partners include The University of Virginia Health System in Charlottesville, Jefferson Health (Philadelphia), OSF Health (Illinois), UConn Health, Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist (North Carolina), Meridian Hackensack (New Jersey), MedStar Health (Maryland and Washington, DC) and Vanderbilt Health, among others. 

No.  OIA has always been comfortable with a minority ownership position, typically between 20% to 33% ownership.  However, OIA is open to taking a larger share if desired by our partner.

OIA and our hospital partner (either direct or through an investment subsidiary) will create a brand-new limited liability company to house the assets of the center or centers.  The LLC will have its own Board of Directors (majority controlled by our partner) and will sign off on all decisions of the center.  Parties will contribute capital in proportion to ownership and likewise, all cash distributions will also be in proportion to ownership.

OIA provides a full spectrum of services to the center including development, management, marketing and revenue cycle solutions.

In all cases, OIA reports to the Board of Directors of the center (again, the majority owned by our partner) and the Board approves or redirects all our efforts accordingly.  For example, on an annual basis, OIA will present a comprehensive management plan and budget to the Board.  Once approved, OIA facilitates that plan and budget and reports to the Board on a daily or monthly basis as to our progress.

At all times, our partner will be fully knowledgeable about the operations of the center and will have full strategic control over the direction of the center.

The center’s Information Technology solution will be chosen by the Board and will ensure continuity of care for the referring physician, our partner and its radiologists through the sharing of data and images throughout the enterprise.  More often than not, the center will operate on the hospital’s EMR solution in order to provide the best possible solution to our partner’s referring physicians and patients.

Every healthcare provider is faced with increasing demands on an already stretched capital budget.  OIA will ease this burden by providing its own equity in these joint ventures alongside the partners.  Further, the OIA financial model not only minimizes our partner’s initial cash outlay but will finance the growth of the venture on the balance sheet of the LLC.  In many of our joint ventures, our partner’s initial capital contribution was the only contribution they have had to make while in turn distributing millions in cash back to our partners.

Yes.  In addition to launching new centers, OIA also has a proven record of turning around underperforming centers.  If your imaging center does not meet its expected goals, OIA would welcome the opportunity to evaluate the center and offer recommendations.  Often, through implementation of OIA’s management, marketing, and operating solutions, underperforming center will soon achieve desired results.

No.  The joint venture will most likely utilize the professional services provided by the radiology group currently affiliated with our partner.  In some cases, we can look to outside or third party groups if requested by our partners.