Radisphere aims to build community hospital customer base

Radiology outsourcing group Radisphere is looking to build its customer base of community hospitals a year after a substantial fundraise that helped bolster the company’s technology.

The Cleveland-area company recently gained some recognition that should boost its sales pitch to potential customers: A report from research firm KLAS found that Radisphere scored higher than any of its peers in the quality of reports it provides to customers.

Radisphere scored 95 percent in customer satisfaction, a number that was in line with most of its peers, but far higher than industry leader Virtual Radiologic, which struggled to maintain positive customer feelings after changes related to its $170 million acquisition of rival NightHawk Radiology last year.

“We’ve spent a long time building the largest network of subspecialty radiologists in the country,” CEO Scott Seidelmann said. The company employs about 100 full- and part-time radiologists, whose subspecialties include women’s health, musculoskeletal and oncology, he said.

Radisphere has about 35 community hospital customers, but Seidelmann declined to specify the number the company hopes to add over the next year or two.

The company announced a $27.5 million series C investment a year ago, bringing its total investment funding to $75 million over 10 years, Seidelmann said. Much of the latest funding was used to enhance Radisphere’s “radii” technology platform — and that was no small task, according to Seidelmann.

Among other things, the software collects orders and information from hospitals, routes the orders to the right radiologists, then delivers a report back to the referring physician and enables real-time consultation among the physicians.

“We’re dealing with thousands of studies every day across hundreds of facilities,” Seidelmann said. “That’s a massive undertaking.”

Radiology outsourcing groups like Radisphere have become increasingly popular with investors in recent years. The trend is being driven largely by technology advances and healthcare cost pressures, which have combined to create a lucrative market for the companies stepping up to provide radiology services as hospitals look to save cash any way they can.

Still, radiology companies are facing some headwinds. A recent report found that spending on imaging services for individual Medicare patients has dropped 13 percent since 2006, according to the Medical Imaging and Technology Alliance.