The █████ [Outpatient] Center is being sold to RadNet. Officially, [the hospital] is entering into a partnership with RadNet, who’ll give a percentage of profits to the hospital in exchange for being the exclusive service provider for the patients who go to █████. Imagine the mafia seizing control of all the doctor’s offices in a city, briefly offering the poor doctor a 10% cut of the profits before closing the joint down quicker than Speedy Gonzales running for queso Oaxaca, and funneling every single patient in the city to a centralized Dr. Giancana’s office. That’s what RadNet does with radiology and imaging centers.
Hospital management, instead of adequately staffing us here at the hospital and at the █████ Center, instead forces their hospital radiology techs to image not only the emergency, surgery, and inpatient patients, but also outpatients. Two men running around an entire hospital, going from code, to surgery, to STAT ICU, to emergency department patients, and having to somehow, eventually, get to the patients who’ve actually scheduled their radiology procedures. “I got here at 10, I had an appointment at 10!” It’s 11:40. “I’m sorry, I know you came here on time for your appointment, but we were called to the ICU, then we had to assist so-and-so surgeon…” And that just sounds bad to everyone. The outpatient center scheduled patients without actually having clinical staff to attend to them for their appointments. God, even without having to deal with outpatients in a fucking hospital we were understaffed. And they’ve cut us further since the start of COVID-19.