Ann: Additional MRI Medicare Licence Process, page-3

The problem with most of the Capital Radiology sites apart from Olympic Park and is there are no specialists associated with the practices that would refer to a full licence. Sites will go to private hospitals with consulting rooms with onsite radiology that have no MRI licence or have no MRI apparatus and installing a new one. There is no case for community sites to get an upgrade from partial to full as they only get GP referrals and a full license offers no real advantage. Show me a partial or unfunded MRI site that has orthopaedic, gerontology, urology, neurology or oncology private specialists and private emergency with a radiology Department operated by Capital. There are none. in Victoria Primary deservedly have the best chance of getting licences as they will have the full backing of Healthscope and HealtheCare networks, access to specialist referrers onsite, 24 hour emergency and the use mix will most likely appeal to the government. Sites such as large private hospitals in Noble Park and Bundoora and the massive Moorabbin fit the bill. Their main problem is they will have to invest in new apparatus for all but one site. The full bulk-billing model is applied by Primary at their hospital sites for outpatients and walk-ins.

Capital Radiology would stand a fair chance of getting a licence upgrade at Berwick and Dandenong and if they were to install at Manningham Medical Centre that would have a chance for a licence due to low numbers in the immediate area and having some specialists but no other organisations would directly benefit from Capitol being given licenses.

Having said that, it is always worth a shot as there is spillover from people getting scans closer to home and Capitol Health would not have to invest a cent to put 16 applications in therefore they will put more applications in than any other radiology company. The case for Olympic Park getting a full license is not watertight, even though the MRI demand is huge. This caters for professional sports people such as the Melbourne Storm, Collingwood Magpies and Richmond Tigers, Melbourne Heart and Victory who constantly attend should pay out of their own pockets or their insurers for their workplace injuries and not use Medicare and there are plenty of fully and partial licensed MRI apparatus in private practice nearby such as Epworth, Bridge Rd Imaging, Victoria House, The Avenue, imed East Melbourne, CMMI just to name a few and is not in a disadvantaged area,