How one Texas practice's vote for independence started Collaborative Imaging
In a sponsored feature in Radiology Business, Jessica Kania tells the founding story of Collaborative Imaging, now CIVIE, through the eyes of Texas Radiology Associates (TRA) Managing Partner Ted Wen, MD, and TRA radiologist and board member John Kim, MD.
A practice at a crossroads
In 2018, TRA in Plano, Texas, served seven hospital systems and posted Press Ganey patient satisfaction scores in the top 2% to 3% nationally. Even so, Wen saw that good work alone would not keep the group competitive against private equity. TRA needed better technology and a stronger revenue cycle to fight rising payer denials.
Selling would have been the easy route. The senior radiologists instead let mid-tenure and incoming partners decide, and they voted for independence. Wen then approached Dhruv Chopra, a friend with an MBA and revenue cycle experience, and the two co-founded Collaborative Imaging in 2018, with Chopra as CEO and Wen as chief medical officer.
Building tools together
The idea was an alliance of independent-minded groups that could fund and shape technology none of them would want to buy alone. “You need tools to compete—and that was the biggest driving force behind Ci,” Wen says. Practices could join as equity members or license the software.
Wen worked directly with 30 in-house programmers. “We tell the developers what we need, and in a week or two, there it is,” he says. The article highlights CIVR, which adds AI to speech-to-text; a cloud patient portal for scheduling; and RadFlow, a modular workflow product.
The first major project tackled incidental findings. Kim notes the group sees “20 to 30 incidental findings a day.” The system uses natural language processing to make sure findings are in the report, then notifies the right physicians so follow-up can be ordered quickly.
A smarter revenue cycle
Kim describes billing as an “arms race” with insurers. Collaborative Imaging’s AI modules generate denial responses, record what works and adjust future submissions to avoid repeat patterns. According to Kim, this lets the company bill for roughly one-third of what most billing companies charge.
Four years on
By 2022, five practices were equity owners, representing 500 radiologists reading more than 20 million exams a year. TRA had grown to 145 radiologists, a 50% increase since Collaborative Imaging began, and cut billing denials to about 5%.
That same mix of speech recognition, workflow and revenue cycle management still sits at the core of the CIVIE platform.
Source: “Unmet needs birth a new breed of radiology partner: The story behind Collaborative Imaging,” Jessica Kania, Radiology Business, September 1, 2022.
