[Oradlist] Certificate of Need for CBCT

[Sharon Brooks]

Hello, Friends

I just received an interesting e-mail from our head radiation safety 
officer for the University of Michigan. As many of you know, I have an 
i-CAT CBCT. Like many states, Michigan requires that all x-ray machines 
be registered and this machine is duly registered as a "dental 
tomography" unit. So far, so good.

The head health physicist for the state recently contacted the RSO and 
asked whether this was a CT unit, because if it is, we have to go 
through all the paperwork for a Certificate of Need (CON) to justify 
why we have this machine. I have heard from the Xoran people that 
Michigan has the most onerous CON program in the entire country. The 
original idea was that hospitals had to justify purchases of costly 
equipment based on a need for the equipment, showing that the service 
to be provided was not available in other areas close by. Theoretically 
it would save health care dollars by not duplicating equipment.

He was asking about details of how the machine works and whether we had 
to call it a CT scanner. I told him that an alternative designation 
sometimes seen in the literature is Digital Volume Tomography (DVT) and 
that I would be happy to call it that if it would make the state 
happier.

I thought I would share this with you in case others who are 
contemplating buying one of these machines have similar concerns from 
their state or university. I'll let you know what they say. The state 
health physicist is a pretty reasonable guy, but like many government 
officials, he holds pretty close to the letter of the law, not just the 
spirit.

Sharon Brooks