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The International Association of Medical Equipment Remarketers and Servicers, founded in 1993, is dedicated to creating a professional, secondary market by bringing together leading dealers, leassors, refurbishers and services committed to ethics and professionalism. Member companies represent a wide variety of medical specialties but are bound together by their commitment to IAMERS' written and enforceable Code of Ethics and Professionalism in the Diagnostic Imaging industry.

IAMERS News Article

ASNC 2009

The American Society of Nuclear Cardiology held its annual meeting this year in Minneapolis on October 1-3. Although I didn’t hear an official registration number most of the attendees with whom I spoke thought the attendance was lower than expected. I suspect they were correct. Like so many meetings this year as the conference approached the organizers were extending the cutoff days for early registration and hotel booking. One can draw certain conclusions about the preregistration from these sorts of activities.

The vendors attending the exhibit were the usual mix but in general the floor wasn’t crowded with attendees or exhibitors. One story has Philips planning to attend and at the last minute withdrawing. People frequently pointed to a large unoccupied space in the center of the exhibit hall where it seemed that something should have been. Philips’s Ghost I guess.

There was talk about the shortage of Tc-99m tracers for nuclear cardiology. Everyone seemed to be asking the same question, will the shortage be resolved and if it is, at what price.

There was some interest in PET as an alternative to SPECT. People were investigating alternatives and simultaneously saying that funding such alternatives would be difficult with the threat of further cuts from CMS in 2010.

About 2 weeks earlier MedAxiom held its Fall Conference. I didn’t attend. But, at the ASNC meeting many had attended and they brought with them the concepts introduced at MedAxiom. The predominant one I heard was about selling practices to hospitals in an attempt to invigorate practice revenues and profitability. Apparently this was a big subject at MedAxiom. Many with whom I spoke were considering this possibility and weighing the potential for avoiding the effect of further reimbursement cuts and increasing or at least stabilizing revenue flow.

I’m not convinced that such business ventures would cure falling revenue and profitability. However, if such a concept was to catch on and many imaging practices were sold to hospitals, I think the effect on sellers of new and used equipment would be significant. Hospitals just take a lot longer to acquire a piece of capital equipment or to adopt and fund a new program.

There wasn’t any new equipment introduced, but this really isn’t a meeting for that kind of thing. GE had their Discovery NM 530c’s with Alcyone technology on display with multi pinhole collimator and CZT detectors. Claims of shorter scan time resulted in some interest from attendees. Unfortunately the unit is being marketed for around $650,000. From the attendee feedback I heard, this won’t play well in Peoria.

Here’s what I took away from the meeting. Moving potential buyers out of the doldrums and into a buying routine in these times is going to be a challenge. Buyers are in a Chicken Little mode. The sky is falling and they’re running for cover. For those interested in expanding applications or replacing older equipment, used equipment that brings high utility and therefore high value to the end user can be part of the solution in these tough times.

Wayne Webster

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