Imaging El Paso set to close, served more than 27,000 patients

After more than 10 years of serving patients, a small medical diagnostic business is being forced to close its doors.

It was an emotional day at Imaging El Paso on the west side. Patients go there for mammograms, ultrasounds and other medical diagnostic screenings. Owner Martha Vera said she just can”t stay in business because of steadily decreasing Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements.

Breast cancer survivor Sylvia Avila traveled from Las Vegas to get special care at Imaging El Paso. She said she can’t get it anywhere else.

“I was treated like family. I was calmed down, I was given hope. It’s what you need when you’re going through what I’m going through,” Avila said.

After 10 years of saving patients lives, and treating more than 27,000 people, the small-business owner said she has to close her doors, due to federal reimbursement cuts.

“It’s a very expensive business and with the cuts that we’ve seen I can tell you that for breast ultrasound we get paid whether we examine one breast or both breasts, it’s the same payment. You don’t get double,” Vera said. She said her office was the first to bring digital mammography to El Paso.

Back in 2005, Vera said Imaging El Paso was paid $250 per digital mammogram. Now, it’s down to about $97, which isn’t enough to cover her overhead and pay her nine employees.

“This is a very nice place. I like it and I would love to, if they were to go to another place, I would follow them because they are very nice people,” patient of eight years Laura Moya said.

“When you have a disease and you feel lost, this is the best place. It really is,” Avila said while holding back tears.

Before closing her doors July 24, Vera is trying to help her dedicated employees find new jobs and says she’d love to see all her patients, new and old, one last time.

“We have learned to do business with the very minimum, and we had still been able to help the community with what we had left,” Vera said.

ABC-7 spoke to Dr. William Boushka, who runs Diagnostic Outpatient Imaging. He said they’re able to survive by having high patient volume of about 100 per day. Boushka has a staff of 28 people, and he refuses to partner with a hospital because he said patient costs would be 10 times higher than they are now. He said he feels sorry for Vera, and believes there needs to be more non-hospital health care available.