by
Lisa Chamoff, Contributing Reporter | September 03, 2015
From the September 2015 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
David Sweitzer, director of operations for KMG, which sells and installs in-house and mobile MRI systems, contracts with Consensys Imaging Service, Inc. to service their customers’ MRI magnets. KMG used to take care of the maintenance itself, but Sweitzer said they decided in 2008 to outsource the work. “No one in our organization has to worry about the price of helium,” Sweitzer says. “It frees us up so we can focus on what we do best.”
There are pros and cons to going with a third-party service organization, Sweitzer says. One disadvantage is that in many cases, a third-party service organization is not able to provide the latest software upgrades, which are often included in an OEM contract. But, Sweitzer says he finds the pros of working with third-party service providers generally outweigh the cons.
“There’s a customer care that … I believe you have to be a fairly large customer if you’re going to get that from an OEM,” Sweitzer says. “I have nothing against the OEMs, but many times I think the end users don’t realize they have a choice.”
Price of helium rising
Helium is much more readily available than it was at this time last year, which Schultz of Cool Pair Plus says is due to plants that were down for maintenance coming back online. “It was a tough year or two when this was going on because we were unable to supply our customers,” Schultz says. “If we had a customer call that had a magnet at 15 percent helium, it was virtually impossible to get them to do a fill.”
Jim Spearman, president of Consensys Imaging Service, Inc., says that it’s easy for helium supply to go into flux due to plant maintenance and geopolitical events. “Helium supply is a very fragile business,” Spearman says. “That’s why I’m knocking on wood.”
Spearman says his company “never missed a single fill” during the recent helium shortages, and urged imaging professionals to make sure the company they use for helium supply has a reliable source themselves. “Make sure, whoever your partner is, that you understand that they have good access to helium,” Spearman says. “A lot of companies don’t have reliable access to helium like we do.”
Though supply is not currently an issue, with government auctions selling helium at closer to market rate, the price continues to climb. Prices for conservation helium have risen this year to $106 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf), up from the $95 per Mcf from the beginning of 2014, according to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The cost has also been having an impact on the industry — to an extent.
Jim Beier, vice president of service for Sumitomo Cryogenics of America, which manufactures coldheads and the compressors for OEMs, says that while there’s more of a demand for the newer systems with zero helium boil-off technology than there is for the older 10K systems, MR sales are still flat. Companies that might have sold eight 10K systems and four 4K systems have seen a switch. “The volume is still the same, it’s just a different mix,” Beier says.
