Kalispell Imaging Center Opens Doors for Low-Cost, Same-Day Medical Scans
The local Montana Imaging Center opened mid-December, offering MRI and CT scans with low out-of-pocket costs, providing an independent service to the community
By Zoë Buhrmaster
Medical scans are now as easy as a stop on the drive through north Kalispell with the addition of an imaging center located off U.S. Highway 93 right under the city’s water tower.
The new Montana Imaging Center (MIC) offers low-barrier MRI and CT scans, with costs a fraction of the average price and walk-ins accepted for same-day scans or next-day appointments. An MRI scan of the brain stem without contrast at the MIC, for example, costs an estimated $800 out-of-pocket, compared to an estimated more than $2,000 at other area medical facilities for the same procedure.
The Kalispell center is Montana Imaging Center’s second location, the first started in Missoula two and a half years ago by radiologist Dr. Tim McCue. Tate Kreitinger, the Kalispell MIC’s business manager and prior executive officer for Kalispell’s HealthCenter, said that the new imaging center evolved out of a desire to bring the concept of Missoula’s MIC to Kalispell.
“What was important for us was to try to establish an imaging center that was locally owned and managed,” Kreitinger said.
The imaging center opened within three months of breaking ground, starting building just after Labor Day 2024 and opening on Dec. 16.
The center’s Canon MRI and CT machines offer some of the newest technology on the market. The MRI opening, or bore, is the largest in the valley, at 30% larger than the average MRI machine, offering a less claustrophobic feel to what can often be a long scan. They’re also noticeably quieter, around 70%, according to Canon. CTs in the center’s new machinery dose patients with 50-80% less radiation than a typical CT machine, while still producing high-quality imagery.
The center typically has results within 24 hours that can be sent directly to a patient’s requested provider, in addition to an emailed report the center sends directly to the patient.
Dr. Nick Satovick is the Kalispell center’s medical director and radiologist-in-chief, with an imaging background of 20 years and a specialization in neuroradiology.
While walking through the center, Satovick commented on a mom undergoing a CT scan, whose kids peered through the glass door into the copper-encapsulated room where she lay listening to ABBA through non-metal headphones supplied by the center. Because of the center’s smaller size the kids could wait and watch nearby, “not something you’d see in a large medical facility.”
Of the center’s total 6,000 square feet, about two thirds is currently being used to house the waiting room, break areas, changing rooms and the two MRI and CT machines. In the future, Satovick said they’ll expand into the remaining 2,000 square feet, adding X-rays, ultrasounds, mammography, full body scans (which the Missoula center currently offers) and DEXA bone density scans.
“We get to see everything, all of the medical conditions from birth to death,” Satovick said. “It’s really cool that way, and imaging just adds a lot to the diagnosis for these people.”
The center’s eight-staff team worked together previously at Logan Health, making the team dynamic an easy transition.
The two MRI and CT technicians, Lea Moss and Brandy Pitts, respectively, were both in Flathead Valley Community College’s first class of the Radiologic Technology A.A.S. program. Pitts will often see people from the community who she knows, calling on the patient relationships as part of her reason for wanting to work for a small business.
“It’s a smaller, intimate setting,” she said.
The Kalispell center services all commercial insurance payers in the valley, excluding Medicare and Medicaid for the time being to help keep prices low and avoid the additional expenses that it would incur. As an independent service, the center works with both private providers and larger health organizations like Logan Health to receive referrals.
“Being able to connect with them as an independent and hear what they need, that’s really been rewarding this far, just in these early days,” Satovick said.
“We know the value that small business adds to community. I think non-hospital based medical services do the same.”
The Kalispell MIC is open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 3201 U.S. Highway 93.