Smart Choice MRI Opens Clinic in Woodbury

Smart Choice MRI, the first MRI provider in the country to offer high-quality MRIs for an all-inclusive fee of $600 or less, opens a clinic today in Woodbury at 1605 Queens Drive, #130. Patients can book appointments at 844-NEED-MRI (844-633-3674) immediately or online at www.smartchoicemri.com. All Smart Choice MRIs are read by board-certified radiologists from the Cleveland Clinic, consistently ranked among the nation's best hospitals by U.S. News & World Report.

The Woobury clinic is the second Smart Choice MRI location to open in the Twin Cities area. A Richfield clinic opened last month. Both clinics feature a 1.5T GE Signa Explorer MRI with silent scan capabilities. An Eden Prairie clinic is anticipated by the end of the year as well as one in Roseville by the first quarter of 2017.

Smart Choice MRI's recent expansion has been fueled by $14.5 million in capital, primarily from two health care systems: Edward-Elmhurst Health of Naperville, IL, and ThedaCare, the largest healthcare system in Northeast Wisconsin

"We're excited to be opening more doors in the Twin Cities," said Rick Anderson, Smart Choice MRI chairman and CEO. "We anticipate that the community will welcome our approach to value-driven care. The rise of high deductible health plans has fueled consumers who understand their options and demand a higher level of service from their providers. Quality care at a fair, transparent price has never been more important."

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation/Health Research & Educational Trust (HRET) 2015 Employer Health Benefit Survey, consumers are increasingly pinched by out of pocket healthcare costs. Over the past five years, both the share of workers with deductibles and the size of those deductibles have risen sharply. These two trends together have resulted in a 67 percent increase in deductibles since 2010, much faster than the rise in single premiums (24%) and about seven times the rise in workers' wages (10%) and general inflation (9%).

The national average MRI cost is $2,611, according to NerdWallet Health, the personal finance website, which analyzed outpatient data from Medicare.

Smart Choice MRI has clinics in three states: Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota. It anticipates as many as 18 by the end of 2016.

For more information, visit Smart Choice MRI at www.smartchoicemri.com.