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 Proponents say-home X-ray services help frail patients avoid
difficult and potentially hazardous trips to hospitals. Other
patients seek in-home providers out of convenience, as an ankle or
chest X-ray can take less than 20 minutes.
“We go to the patient and take the X-ray, rather than having the
patient go to the doctor’s office,” said Paul Fowler, founder of
Specialty Portable X-Ray, Inc. in New York.
“Usually, in about an hour after we take an X-ray we give these
results directly to the doctor,” he told Reuters Health. “With the
digital X-rays, we are using probably less exposure than you would
at the hospital.”
Patients must have a doctor’s prescription for an x-ray, or for an
ultrasound exam, which can also be done at home. Fowler’s company
charges about $300 for a visit for patients without health
insurance, he said. Some celebrities seek his services to avoid
paparazzi and unwanted attention.
“The very wealthy who don’t want to go to the emergency room, they
feel like they’re above that, they’ll call us and say, ‘I twisted my
ankle, can you come over and take an X-ray of my ankle,’ ” he added.
“I’ve been doing it for 35 years, it’s just gotten bigger and better
over the years.”
Jacob R. Wuerstle, president of Diagnostic X-ray Service, Inc. in
Pennsylvania, said portable X-rays are also used in assisted living
facilities and prisons.
“We keep the patients in a setting that they’re familiar with, that
they’re comfortable with,” he told Reuters Health. The option for
home X-rays is especially helpful for elderly patients in snowy
parts of the country.
His technicians scan more than 30,000 patients per year. Sessions
cost about $200. “We use state-of-the-art equipment and we transmit
right from the patient’s bedside to the radiologist,” he said.
Wuerstle said baby boomers are the fastest growing segment of
clients.
Dr. James C. Carr, a professor of radiology at Northwestern
University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, believes
trained technicians using portable machines can provide quality
scans for patients in rural areas or unable to move.
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“As long as the equipment is being regulated and the technologists
are satisfactorily trained, concerns can be mitigated,” he told
Reuters Health.
But portable X-ray machines, while convenient, may be less accurate.
Dr. David Levin, professor and chairman emeritus of the Department
of Radiology at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia
said he would not recommend in-home X-rays for mobile patients.
“The quality of those images is usually not very good. If you
compare the quality of those kinds of studies with the quality of a
study that was performed in a hospital in a radiology department or
in a private radiology office, there is going to be no comparison,”
he told Reuters Health. “If a portable X-ray is absolutely necessary
because of the patient’s clinical condition, then it’s justifiable.”
As the portable X-ray market grows, state and federal regulations
for radiation protection must be followed, said Dr. William
Thorwarth, Jr., chief executive officer of the American College of
Radiology in Virginia.
“You want to be very certain that the technologist who’s acquiring
the images is appropriately trained and qualified,” he told Reuters
Health. “There needs to be appropriate precautions so that other
people in the house are not exposed.”
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