DOTmed Certified Christopher Reilly, president of CER Medical, Charleston, SC, knew that he wanted to start his own nuclear imaging business after working for JPL Electronics, Medford, NY for 17 years. JPL is a nuclear medicine sales and service company.

Reilly had been talking with JPL's owner about buying out his company but when that didn't happen, Reilly decided to move his family to Charleston, rather than start a company on Long Island and compete with his old friend and boss. That was in August 2005. Since then, Reilly continues to pursue his forte-- offering nuclear sales and services to cardiologists-- the same specialty he was drawn to while working for JPL.

In fact, in 2007, CER Medical became a Digirad sales representative in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. He says, "Digirad makes the best gamma cameras on the market today. These days the trend among cardiologists is the small footprint, dual head machines which is what Digirad is focuses on." He adds, "The images from the Digirad have become the gold standard for diagnostics. Most of my customers now have small footprint dual head gamma cameras to assist them in taking the best care of their patients."

Cardiologists and "The Big Three"

CER Medical sells Digirad's systems to private cardiologists who are in groups of up to 20 physicians, while also selling and servicing refurbished equipment for GE, IS2 Medical and ADAC.

"So many cardiologists prefer to do business with me rather than with the big companies," Reilly says. He adds, "After a period of time, doctors tend to get away from GE and other big companies because they're looking for an alternative. They'll work with an ISO like us since we tend to offer better customer support and care."


Preventive Medicine

The gamma cameras CER Medical sells are capital equipment investments costing approximately $230,000 per machine, so they typically last a minimum of 10 years, but often much longer, Reilly says. During the time a cardiologist has the system, Reilly visits their offices three or four times a year to do PM--preventive maintenance--much like preventive medicine, he jokes.

As far as business is concerned, he says "considering the way the economy is going, we're holding our own."

On the upside, he says his new DOTmed certification, which he received in November, "shows you are reliable. A lot of people are looking for people they can trust and I think that a certification provides proof of this."

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