A new image

Don Hunter was on a plane when he started feeling strange. The plane was on the tarmac in Dallas, awaiting takeoff.

"I didn't reel right," Hunter said. "I stopped the plane and went to a hospital."

Several hours later — after electrocardiograms and blood enzyme tests — everything came back normal. Which should have meant he was fine.

He wasn't.

"I showed them the results of my AccuScan and told them about my twin brother (who had suffered a heart attack, at age 52, a few months before), and they did an angioplasty," Hunter said. "They found a blockage and put in a stent, which prevented me from having a heart attack."

Hunter said he "owes it all" to AccuScan, a Utah-based health imaging company and one of a growing number of private, specialty health services providers springing up around the country.

From elective surgery to MRIs (magnetic resonance imaging) to ultrasounds, fee-for-service providers are finding that there's a market for their products. But response from the medical community has ranged from tolerance to skepticism and concern.

AccuScan spokesman Matt Anderson said the company — currently the only one of its kind in Utah — provides a preventative care option for its clients. Founded in 2002, the company provides a variety of computer tomography (CT) scans to create an internal 3-D image of a client's body, including full-body scans, heart scans and lung scans. The company also offers "virtual" colonoscopy. Prices range from $295 for the lung scan to $1,500 for the full-body scan plus virtual colonoscopy. Financing is available to qualified customers.

"At AccuScan, our intention is not to replace your doctor," Anderson said. "It's to provide more insight, using the tools they have. We want to help them give you the most accurate diagnosis or health plan that you can have."

About a year before Hunter's brother had his heart attack, Hunter's employer, Huish Detergents Inc., recommended that its employees get the test. A reasonably healthy man, Hunter did it more out of curiosity than fear that something was wrong.

The AccuScan, however, indicated that Hunter's calcium score was high and recommended a visit to a heart specialist. He didn't make that visit, but he kept his copy of the scan handy and had it delivered to the hospital after the incident on the plane. That, plus the information about Hunter's brother, led doctors to perform the exploratory surgery — and, according to Hunter, prevented a heart attack.