Barwon Medical Imaging (BMI)

The website below allows you to view the schedule of fees for different diagnostic imaging procedures.
 www9.health.gov.au

Medicare changes effective from 1st November 2009 will allow BMI to provide medicare rebateable imaging to all patients with no out of pocket expenses.

Barwon Medical Imaging is committed to providing the very best in radiological services to its patients. Part of this commitment includes ongoing testing and servicing of all diagnostic radiographic equipment at all sites, and continual review of the protocols used and quality assurance testing.

Our new Philips Digital Radiography (DR) systems use 50% less radiation dose compared with other x-ray systems.

In addition, the equipment manufacturers carry out regular scheduled servicing on behalf of Barwon Medical Imaging.  We have also adopted the recommendation of the International Commission on Radiological Protection regarding minimizing exposure of patients to ionising radiation.  Barwon Health complies with all the requirements of the Radiation Act 2005 which includes Compliance Testing of equipment, Management Licensing and individual User Licenses.

Each of our highly trained radiographic staff is licensed to use our modern equipment; they are also continually training in new techniques to ensure that a high standard of radiographic service is maintained.

Yes, Barwon Medical Imaging is able to carry out imaging procedures on any Provider’s Request Form.  Patients have the choice to choose an imaging provider best suited to their needs.  Our bookings and enquiries line (5226 7559) will be able to assist you with any queries you may have.

X-ray examinations involve exposing the patient to a well-defined beam of x-rays which passes through the part of the body under examination and is intercepted by an imaging device on the far side of the body. Nuclear medicine examinations, on the other hand, involve introducing a radioactively labelled drug into the body, usually by intravenous injection, which is preferentially taken up by the particular organ under investigation. The radioactive material emits gamma rays which pass out of the body to a gamma camera positioned over the organ of interest.

Whereas radiation is present during an x-ray examination only for the short period during which the x-ray machine is switched on, the radioactive material used in a nuclear medicine examination will continue to emit radiation, but at a rapidly decreasing rate, for many hours after the examination. The distribution of the radiation dose within the body is consequently quite different for x-ray and nuclear medicine examinations and the type of radiation is also different.

However it is possible to estimate the doses received by radiosensitive organs in the body from both of these types of examination and to combine the organ doses in a manner which takes account of their relative radiosensitivity. The combined organ dose is called the 'effective dose' and provides a measure of the total radiation risk from the non-uniform exposures typical of both x-ray and nuclear medicine examinations.

The lifetime risk of fatal cancer can be approximately estimated from the effective dose. Typical effective doses and fatal cancer risks for some common x-ray and nuclear medicine examinations are shown in the table. Equivalent periods of natural background radiation which will result in the same effective dose as the medical examinations are also shown for comparison.

The effective doses and risks for most of the common nuclear medicine procedures, particularly those involving the radionuclide technetium-99m (Tc-99m), lie in the middle of the range seen for x-ray examinations.

The appropriate number of x-rays for a particular patient depends entirely on that patient's medical condition. The doctor must, however, be sure that each x-ray examination he or she requests will provide useful information for the treatment or management of the patient so that there is a real benefit which will outweigh the very small radiation risk for each examination requested.
A large number of high-dose examinations (for example CT body scans) in one year may well be justified to diagnose and assess the treatment of a serious life-threatening condition.

The doses of radiation used in medical diagnosis are relatively low and the risks associated with them are very small in comparison with the direct benefit to the patient from the improved diagnosis. The 'correct' dose for a particular x-ray examination is essentially the minimum that is required to make an accurate diagnosis. This will vary from patient to patient depending on their particular medical problem, on their physique and on the type of examination that is required. It is therefore not possible to specify 'correct' or 'safe' doses for examinations of different parts of the body which are generally applicable to all patients. Rather, an x-ray examination should first be justified by ensuring that there is a clear medical benefit to the patient and then the dose should be kept as low as reasonably practicable without compromising the diagnostic value.

If patients are concerned about the possible risks from having an x-ray examination they should seek reassurance from their doctor that the examination is indeed necessary and that it is likely to yield useful diagnostic information. All reasonable steps should be taken to minimise these risks and to be sure that the x-ray examination is justified in terms of an overriding health benefit to the patient. In most cases the risk to the patient's health from not obtaining an accurate diagnosis by foregoing or restricting the use of x-rays, will be much greater than the very small risks from the radiation.  Further information may be obtained from arpansa.gov.au.

X-rays are a type of ionising radiation and as such they have the potential to alter chemical structure in cells. In general the radiation dose in the vast majority of x-ray examinations is very small- much less than the background radiation dose. For an excellent explanation of the safety of x-rays go to hpa.org.uk and download the publication on x-ray safety.

Under the section entitled 'Procedures' there is some information regarding the most commonly performed x-ray procedures. If you are interested in obtaining further information you can visit one of the internationally recognised websites such as the one sponsored by ACR and RSNA www.radiologyinfo.org However, please be aware that procedures are not always performed the same way in every practice.