Diagnostic Imaging Centers vs Hospitals
When you are sick or don’t feel well, you naturally want to get back to feeling better as quickly as possible. If that means you need to have some images taken, it makes sense to pause and weigh the benefits of getting those images from an imaging center versus getting them from the urgent care center or hospital where you might be.
The choice of where to get your images taken is yours. You are under no obligation to have images taken at a hospital or urgent care center. You can have them taken at a facility like Watson Imaging Center, where we specialize uniquely in imaging.
Everyone knows a trip to the hospital can be expensive and you don’t even know what you might pay. Hospitals charge more because of their high overhead, partly because of patients that do not pay their bills. On top of that, there is a lot of uncertainty surrounding when patients are able to use imaging machines. Hospitals have a system that, understandably, prioritizes patients with more urgent needs ahead of those with less urgent needs. What this can mean is that patients can be forced to wait for images to be taken.
The premium that comes with getting images at a hospital or urgent care center is, in most cases, avoidable. An imaging center like Watson Imaging Center does not charge a high overhead and you don’t shoulder the bill of unpaying patients. Your images are schedule to be taken during a specific time slot and you as a patient are prioritized during that time slot. There is no uncertainty about when you need to arrive for your images and no egregious wait times once you arrive at Watson Imaging Center.
Another perk of choosing an imaging center over getting images taken at a hospital or urgent care center is the fact that since our sole specialization is in taking images, we have machines that are almost always guaranteed to be newer than those you would find in a hospital or urgent care center. Unlike at a hospital or urgent care center, where imaging is not necessarily the highest priority of services offered and therefore their imaging machines are not always the most current, imaging centers have only one type of machine to prioritize: their imaging equipment.
A bit of a side note, or maybe another perk: finding parking at our facility is easy. It’s not like at a hospital where there never seems to be any parking, or any parking anywhere close to the doors.
Next time you need images taken for a suspected illness or maybe for something more routine, remember Watson Imaging Center and give us a call at (314) 781-9711 to find out when you could get in and what your costs would be.