Revolutionizing Radiology Virtual Contrast Supervision with Dr. Zack Timmons

Episode Overview

Episode Topic:

In this episode of The Skeleton Crew, host Jenn Callahan welcomes Dr. Zack Timmons, co-founder of Contrast Coverage Texas, to discuss the revolutionary approach his company has taken to supervision in radiology. With the increasing demand for imaging services, particularly in outpatient settings, Dr. Timmons and his team have introduced an innovative solution that provides both on-site and virtual contrast coverage and supervision. This episode dives into the importance of contrast supervision for patient safety, particularly for those undergoing CT and MRI scans, and how Contrast Coverage Texas is helping imaging centers extend their hours and improve patient care.

Dr. Timmons also shares insights into how virtual supervision, a practice that gained traction during the COVID-19 pandemic, is becoming a permanent fixture in the radiology field. This technology not only ensures patient safety but also supports radiologists by reducing the burden of managing contrast reactions, allowing them to focus on reading studies. The conversation sheds light on how Contrast Coverage Texas is filling a critical gap in the healthcare system, making high-quality imaging services more accessible and safer for patients across the country.

Lessons You’ll Learn:

Listeners will gain a deep understanding of the critical role that contrast supervision plays in the safety and effectiveness of radiology services, particularly for CT and MRI scans. Dr. Zack Timmons explains the guidelines set by organizations like the American College of Radiology (ACR) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) that mandate the presence of a physician during contrast injections to manage potential allergic or anaphylactic reactions. This episode provides valuable insights into how Contrast Coverage Texas is addressing the challenges faced by imaging centers, especially those in rural areas, by offering flexible and cost-effective virtual supervision solutions.

Additionally, the episode highlights the benefits of virtual contrast supervision for both imaging centers and radiologists. Dr. Timmons discusses the training provided to technologists, ensuring they are well-prepared to handle contrast reactions with confidence. The episode also explores the broader impact of this service on the healthcare system, including how it enables outpatient facilities to extend their hours and serve more patients, ultimately improving access to essential imaging services.

About Our Guests: Dr. Zack Timmons is an emergency medicine physician and the co-founder of Contrast Coverage Texas, a company that provides on-site and virtual contrast supervision services to imaging centers across the United States. With a strong background in both medicine and business, Dr. Timmons has combined his passion for patient care with his expertise in technology and innovation to create a solution that addresses a significant need in the radiology field. He completed his undergraduate studies at Rice University, attended Dell Medical School in Austin, and completed his residency in emergency medicine at UT Houston.

Topics Covered:

This episode covers a wide range of topics related to contrast supervision in radiology, starting with an overview of the services provided by Contrast Coverage Texas. Dr. Zack Timmons discusses the origins of the company, how it has grown since its founding in 2023, and the unique needs it addresses in the imaging field. The episode delves into the importance of having a physician available during contrast injections, the guidelines and regulations surrounding this practice, and the potential risks associated with inadequate supervision.

Listeners will also learn about the technical aspects of virtual contrast supervision, including how Contrast Coverage Texas uses mobile contrast units (MCUs) to provide real-time audio and visual support during imaging procedures. Dr. Timmons explains the training process for technologists and the steps taken to ensure patient safety during contrast injections. Additionally, the episode touches on the future of virtual supervision, the potential for its expansion across the country, and the role it may play in the evolving landscape of outpatient imaging services.

Our Guest: Dr. Zack of Contrast Coverage

Episode Transcript

Jenn Callahan: Hey, everybody, welcome back to another episode of The Skeleton Crew. I’m your host, Jenn Callahan, and tonight I have a great guest with me. His name is Doctor Zack Timmons, and he is joining me from Texas. He’s here to talk to us tonight about the company that he has co-founded with a few others called Contrast Coverage Texas, and they are providing on site and virtual contrast coverage and supervision for different imaging services. So Zack, thanks for being with me tonight.

 Zack Timmons: Yeah. Thanks so much for having me. I’m looking forward to talking with you. Oh for.

Jenn Callahan: Sure. So let’s talk a little bit about contrast coverage, and maybe how you and your other co-founders kind of came into this, this great company that you have going on.

 Zack Timmons: Yeah, absolutely. Well yeah. Thanks again, Jen, for having us. So we started the company back in April of 2023. And it’s actually kind of a funny story. My other physician co-founder Sam Baker, he had a wedding and he actually just needed a little bit of money to pay for that wedding. It was beautiful, by the way, and so we started doing contrast supervision in person for a local imaging center here in Houston, Texas, and had a really good time covering for them. But we were as we learned more about the industry, we found that for a lot of imaging centers, you know, 90% of them will provide contrast coverage, but up to 75% of them only provide contrast supervision 40 hours a week, and some even as few as 5 to 10 hours a week. And especially as I know that, you know, as we have an aging population, you know, more people living with chronic diseases, we’re literally, in some cases, curing cancer, taking care of all of these different patients, you know, involving recurrent imaging. And so anything that we can do to help imaging centers improve the number of hours that they’re able to care for patients, the better. And so as we started to build out the company, we went from in-person supervision to virtual supervision, which is a new technology that’s kind of being implemented in this space, and we’ve been doing that really for the past year. It’s been going really well. We’ve been enjoying it, and it’s been a great solution for our imaging centers to kind of help them take care of more patients.

Jenn Callahan: Yeah, definitely a great solution. Let’s like kind of backpedal a little bit and maybe explain to those who are in the radiologic field who might not know this completely, and those who are listening that might not even be in the field. What is the purpose of having to have contrast supervision? You know, is there guidelines out there and exactly what guidelines are there?

 Zack Timmons: Yeah, absolutely. No. Great question. And so, you know, I trained as an emergency medicine physician and so very thankful for all of our, you know, imaging technologists and radiologists to help take care of patients who are receiving contrast every day. But essentially multiple organizations, including the ACR, the American College of Radiology, CMS and center for Medicaid Services, among others, require that there is a physician available to oversee a contrast injection. So contrast, as we know, is the special dye that gets inserted via an IV, which helps with the resolution of the picture and can help radiologists identify more pathology easier. And so it gets better care for the patients. A lot of times if they can get this contrast dye. The downside is that occasionally patients will have allergic reactions or physiologic reactions to that dye. And in the very worst cases, anaphylactic reactions that can actually be life threatening. And so because of that, as I mentioned, these organizations have required that there are trained staff not only from the technologist perspective, but the physician perspective on site to care for these patients. And so really, that is the key reason that contrast supervision is around. And as we were kind of talking about earlier, historically this has been done by an in person radiologist. And as we know, as we move to Teleradiology, there’s now a lot of radiologists going off site. And so for a lot of imaging centers, it’s difficult to find that person to provide contrast and revision. And that’s kind of where we come in.

Jenn Callahan: Right. And especially, I mean, outpatient facilities are so prevalent, you know, at this point, because of the amount of imaging services that are like needed for, you know, the general population. So hours are being extended. I can attest to that, because I worked at an outpatient facility for a while in the Philadelphia region. And, you know, imaging x-ray services might have ended at, say, 6:00. However, because there was such a demand for MRI and Cat scan studies, they would go until 9:00. So their hours were our facility opened at like seven in the morning, but they would take scheduled patients for Cat scans and MRIs up until 8: 30 at night. And as you’re saying, you know, you’re supposed to have a radiologist or someone there supervising, make sure that there aren’t contrast reactions. And I mean, it totally makes sense where your service comes into play.

 Zack Timmons: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s a great point too. Just to the outpatient centers. I mean, they’re to me, they’re really the backbone of a lot of American healthcare. As I mentioned earlier, we have people living with active cancers, chronic conditions that need, you know, recurrent imaging. And so the ability to be able to keep your center open up a few hours later each day or on the weekends is a huge value add for patients, especially those that need recurrent imaging, not having to go to a hospital. You know, generally getting imaging at the outpatient center is going to be more cost effective. It’s going to be more convenient for patients, especially elderly patients who, you know, maybe can’t walk from the hospital parking garage all the way to the CT area. There’s just a lot of things that it makes sense for, for patients to be able to get imaging in the outpatient center, and we really enable that and enable the centers to provide that service. Yeah.

Jenn Callahan: Let’s talk about then how you’re doing the virtual portion of that. How does that, you know, explain the whole situation? Because obviously being virtual isn’t the same as being in person. And how does it go for the contrast supervision.

 Zack Timmons: Yeah, absolutely. So I think yeah, as you mentioned, the biggest transition with virtual supervision is the physician physician going from being on site during all contrast injections to being virtual, which in our case is through our mobile contrast units or MCUs. And so essentially what happens is kind of similar to the conversation we’re having right now. We’ll have one of our mobile contrast units on site at the center. We work very closely with our CT and MRI technologists to ensure that they have training, not only with the platform and the technology, but also around contrast reactions, because these are things that, you know, depending on what center you were at before, you may or may not have received training on. So that can be kind of a little bit anxiety provoking at the beginning. But what we found is that once we do the training, the technologists are actually really empowered. They really like the fact that the physicians are there and available anytime that they need us. But essentially, if there is a contrast reaction, just like in the world today, where the technologist would generally first identify that the patient is having an issue and then contact the physician, the same process aligns. We’re there on real time audio and visual via our mobile contrast unit. We assess the patient in real time, and then we have medications actually on our MCUs, including epinephrine pens that allow for quick administration of therapies when needed. We also provide 24 hour service to a physician hotline. After contrast reactions and specific aftercare instructions that really kind of make the process from end to end like a great experience for the patient.

Jenn Callahan: Has there ever been like, contrast reactions that have happened, you know, during a virtual assessment?

 Zack Timmons: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And so it’s and it’s very similar. You know, one thing that we really pride ourselves on, as I mentioned, is the technologist training. That’s a big part of kind of not only the ACR recommendation and requirements for this virtual supervision world that we’re living in now, but also just important for patient safety and care. We go through with our technologists every single piece of equipment that’s on our mobile contrast unit so that they know how to not only dose, you know, different pills, but also different vials that have, you know, a little bit different mechanism. Solumedrol is one that kind of comes to mind as something that if you haven’t administered that before, it can be a little bit daunting. And so we kind of walk through the technologies to really give them the skills that if the physician does say, hey, we need this medication administered, they feel really confident in being able to do that. So good.

Jenn Callahan: Is there ever a case scenario where, like it’s an emergency type situation where they might the patient might have to go to say like an emergency room?

 Zack Timmons: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Any really any anaphylactic or anaphylactoid type reaction where we’re administering epinephrine. We’re also simultaneously kind of calling 911. And, you know, as an emergency physician, I deal with anaphylactic reactions literally on a daily basis. And so, you know, not only is it, you know, the safest thing for the patient, but it’s the right, you know, medical and evidence based care to kind of initiate that emergency emergency response system. So that’s definitely a part of our care. And something again, having an epinephrine pen handy I think also makes it just super easy to get people the right care when they need it.

Jenn Callahan: So I mean that’s just a quick stab to the leg.

 Zack Timmons: Exactly. Yeah. And that’s the great thing, right? We teach patients every day how to use those pens. And so this the CT or MRI technologist that is much more skilled in administering a number of medications already. They do great with it. So yeah.

Jenn Callahan: So we’re talking about different types of studies that they’re being used for. Is it mainly like contrast studies for uh Cat scan and an MRI.

 Zack Timmons: Yeah, exactly. Like CT and MRI imaging. We do that here in Texas as well as across the country in other states. So starting in Texas but have a national footprint now, it can pretty much provide these services across the country, which has been exciting. Yeah.

Jenn Callahan: That’s great. I kind of think of it as like the language line that we use in my hospital. It’s the little iPad that’s on, you know, a roller, and you roll it around and, you know, I mean. Exactly. The language line you’re calling, you know, for different languages to be spoken with patients, but instead you’re just calling a doctor to, to be present. So then you stay on the line during, say, a possible like MRI scan for what, 30 minutes? Mhm. Uh, a physician is on the line then for like 30 minutes while you know. Or is it, are they only on the line possibly during the contrast portion of it.

 Zack Timmons: So we’re we usually will and we’ll work with centers to kind of figure out when they need us available. But essentially any time they’re scheduled for contrast injections we will be on the line. And that’s very like, well, kind of written out in the ACR guidelines that you actually have to be on real time audio video. And so our technicians usually the way it works is kind of at the beginning of the day, they’ll we’ll have a discussion, we’ll both log on and then we’re just there if they need us at a moment’s notice.

Jenn Callahan: So just to like, backtrack a little bit to what you had said, that some facilities don’t have physicians available during a percentage of the time during the day. It’s kind of scary to think about that. You know, patients could possibly receive contrast and have this type of reaction. Now, I feel like technologists who are administering this do have a general based knowledge. You know, this is computer based training information that I feel like is, you know, a backbone to what they’re doing. But kind of concerning. So I mean, great solution all around. But do you have any more information or maybe like studies that you can share with us about the contrast reactions happening and physicians not being. Yeah.

 Zack Timmons: Yeah, absolutely. And just to clarify my earlier statement. So when we were surveying centers, they provide contrast, you know, 5 to 10 hours a week. So it’s not that they don’t have a physician available outside of those. They don’t have a physician available when they’re giving the contrast. But it’s time that they can have a physician there because it’s so expensive. And maybe they’re a more rural center, so they can’t have a physician come in every day. And so really, those are the gaps that we’re looking to fill. But to your point, it’s a huge patient safety issue to not have a physician on site for contrast injections. There’s actually been a number of, uh, lawsuits and false claims acts across the country, including here in Texas, around instances where patients were actually given contrast and either had a bad outcome or the imaging center, you know, had a place to claim for a contrast study without physician supervision. So it’s a huge area of regulation that’s important for imaging centers to consider. And I think one of the nice things about the virtual supervision that we offer is that we can do it generally at a pretty affordable cost for the center, too. So it’s kind of a win win. Yeah.

Jenn Callahan: I mean, you’re helping out all around, you know, one for facilities who, you know, sort of staffing shortages everywhere, no matter which way you cut it. And I mean, I think especially since the pandemic, everybody’s kind of looking to do something virtual. So it’s a win there as well. But then it’s also to helping out facilities in terms of, you know, like we said, like lengthening hours. You know, when radiologists don’t possibly want to be on site, you know, or doctors don’t want to be on site, but they can still be there. You know, part of the study?

 Zack Timmons: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, the other part of it is working with a lot of radiologist groups as well, because, you know, they’re under incredible pressure these days, even even in, in virtual radiology to be reading studies, you know, every minute of their day. And so really for them, seeing even a single contrast reaction can really be a roadblock for their workflow for the day. And so having, you know, a dedicated team like ours at Contrast Coverage Texas, that’s focused on these events that are rare, but when they happen can be very serious. And really it helps the imaging centers provide more contrasted hours and get more patients scanned. But it also really helps the radiologist and ensure that they’re going to have a really reliable schedule where they’re already pushed so hard to read, so many studies, and that they can know that they have another physician kind of taking care of the contrast studies or contrasted reactions.

Jenn Callahan: So aside from the on site and the excuse me, aside from the virtual portion you said that you also to offer on site. Is that generally for the, you know, Texas based area of where you are or have you branched out into the you know. Yeah. Surrounding area. Yeah.

 Zack Timmons: So we are on site in multiple states as well. So really it comes down to kind of the individual imaging center need. Most people prefer the virtual option just because there is a lot of flexibility. But some people still prefer to have a physician on site. And so we work on a case by case basis with imaging centers to kind of figure out.

Jenn Callahan: So your co-founder that, you know, kind of was doing this, was he kind of like, I don’t know what you call like a moonlighter where he’s like, he was like a per diem where he was popping in and, you know, being coverage.

 Zack Timmons: Yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. That’s kind of how we both got our start in contrast supervision. And then it grew from there. You know we just saw that this was a huge need not only for the imaging centers but for the radiologists too. So it was kind of a win-win for everyone.

Zack Timmons : Mhm.

Jenn Callahan: And we were talking before and that you’re not staff doctors who are on your staff aren’t necessarily radiologists, or you’re just a trained physician.

 Zack Timmons: A lot of our physicians are radiologists, and that is because there are some recommendations or some requirements, depending on the type of facility that we cover, that it needs to be a radiologist. And so we have radiologists available for those in particular centers. But kind of depending again, on a case by case basis, we can provide radiologists, physicians, but primarily we provide radiologists supervision.

Jenn Callahan: What are the different type of requirements, if you don’t mind me asking, do you know?

 Zack Timmons: Yeah, absolutely. So the kind of the big buckets are physician owned practice, like outpatient imaging practices and hospital based imaging centers that are in the outpatient setting. So that’s kind of one of the big buckets. And then the other big bucket is something called an ITF or an independent diagnostic testing facility. And so particularly for the ITF, there are CMS requirements that you need to have a radiologist that provides the contrast supervision. And so especially for those groups we always provide radiology. Supervision for them.

Zack Timmons : Okay.

Jenn Callahan: Are they able to offer recommendations possibly for the scans. Or is that kind of out of their wheelhouse if they’re not going to do.

Zack Timmons : Yeah.

 Zack Timmons: Ours is. We kind of focus specifically on the contrast supervision.

Jenn Callahan: I’m sorry to interrupt. I guess I worded that wrong. I guess I meant more like recommendations in terms of the contrast for the study that’s being done.

 Zack Timmons: Oh, yeah. Yeah. We just provide the contrast supervision and any reactions around that. But yeah, we wouldn’t be dictating sort of any other care and the types of studies being done.

Jenn Callahan: Have you guys seen any other companies in the area? I’ve never heard of this before. And do you have any competition? I am sorry for that word. Any competition out there that you know.

Zack Timmons : Yeah.

 Zack Timmons: No, as far as we know, we’re kind of the only people out there doing, you know, this type of supervision in multiple states. And so I think that there’s I’m really excited to kind of be on the podcast today to kind of.

Zack Timmons : Help.

 Zack Timmons: Tell people more about virtual supervision, because I think when people, especially in the outpatient imaging world, hear about it, you know, like you mentioned, it kind of checks a lot of boxes. A lot of boxes is very flexible solution. It’s affordable, you know, keeps contrasted studies available for more patients. And so people are really excited when they learn about it. And we’re, you know, excited to hopefully keep providing it and expanding across the country.

Jenn Callahan: Yeah I mean it makes sense. I mean, because like you said, telecommunication, you know, Telluride, since I’ve been in the field, you know, we have been working with at least myself, I should say not we in in a hospital system, you know, after 9:00, like we would always push all our studies to what’s called Nighthawk. And then it was called Vrad, you know, just two different, you know, Telluride communications. So, I mean, it makes sense that something like this in the it that you’ve developed it and that it’s here and, you know, in real time. Before we started recording, though, you had mentioned that, you know, with the pandemic, it especially makes sense, you know, and how things have been trending.

 Zack Timmons: Yeah. No 100%. And that really the virtual supervision, the policy set forth by CMS and the public health emergency. So that was actually the first time virtual supervision had been allowed. And, you know, at that time there was especially as an emergency physician, you know, I knew that there was a lot of uncertainty around Covid. And so to keep the radiologist and other staff safe, CMS said, hey, we’ll allow, you know, two way audio visual supervision of the contrastive studies. And then as people started doing it, they realized it’s actually an incredibly safe modality. And actually earlier this year, the ACR and the and CMS through virtual supervision for the fourth time. So it’ll actually be available at least through 2025, but we’re anticipating that it’ll be a permanent a permanent policy in the near future. While just because it’s been so successful and great for the imaging center is great for the radiologists, great for patients. So.

Zack Timmons : Mhm.

Jenn Callahan: That’s great. Are there a lot of contrast reactions to say gadolinium? I mean, I know that, you know, the contrast is used for Cat scan studies. You know, I feel like it is more prevalent, you know, possibly more so than I’ve heard about the gadolinium with the MRI.

 Zack Timmons: Yeah. The CT contrast, the iodinated contrast typically does have more reaction from the different studies that we’ve read into. But the gadolinium, they tend to be a little bit more delayed reaction. So something that we wouldn’t necessarily see in the center. But you know it does happen as well that there are reactions to MRI contrast. So yeah, we’re there for CT and MRI contrast studies anytime.

Jenn Callahan: Do is there like a checklist that you have the technologist go over with the patients? You know say that you know that they don’t believe that they have a contrast allergy. Uh, for the longest time, I felt like if you were allergic to shellfish, that you weren’t supposed to get the I need it contrast. Is that still part of the process?

Zack Timmons : Yeah.

 Zack Timmons: We work on, like, a case by case basis with our centers and really a lot of those particular policies are dictated by the imaging center themselves. But we kind of do our own, you know, internal checklist just to make sure that those best practices are in place. And, you know, if someone has had a severe contrast, radiology contrast reaction in the past, that they’re hopefully seeking that study in an inpatient setting where it can be kind of more expected. And they have advanced, you know, life support equipment available and that sort of thing if something were to go wrong. So I think I think that’s becoming, you know, best practice and standard across all the imaging centers. But it’s definitely something that as we, you know, speak with each individual center. We make sure that they have policies in place for it.

Zack Timmons : So yeah.

Speaker4: I had this question in my mind and I.

Jenn Callahan: Just lost it. I’m really sorry. But it’s it’s seriously though, the question about the shellfish, I swear, I feel like when I first got into x ray, I remember that used to be one of the questions on the questionnaire for Cat scans. You know, are you a shellfish? And if they were, you know, they wanted you to do a prep for it. Is that still something? That’s if there’s.

 Zack Timmons: Concern. It’s really a people have had, you know, reactions to specific contrast media before. So that’s something that we try to do as well when we’re documenting these reactions in the outpatient space, because I think in general we do see a little bit lower risk population. But, you know, even just down to the specific contrast media, if you can write that down and let the patient know, I know courtesy medicine physician, I get, you know, I’m allergic to iodine all the time. And we know that you can’t be allergic to iodine because that’s incompatible with life. But what they mean is that they had a reaction to iodinated contrast. And so, you know, over time, the contrast media have become so much safer, which has been amazing. You know, we used to use a very like high osmolar solutions, and we’re using more low osmolar solutions now just as one example. So overall I think contrast reactions are going down. But we’re also, you know, imaging a lot more people. And so you know, in that way we’re probably seeing a total number of reactions a lot higher than we used to see. But yeah, we can take it on a case by case basis. And you know, at the end of the day, you want to do what’s right for the patient. If they if they have any history that’s concerning for, you know, ATP or, you know, asthma, severe other allergic reactions. And then they say they have, you know, an allergy. It’s probably something that you want to have emerged in patient settings.

Jenn Callahan: So, um, how you were saying that gadolinium sometimes it’s a delayed reaction. Is there information that’s sent home with the patient. You know, keep watch for this just in case.

Zack Timmons : Yeah.

 Zack Timmons: Yeah. Usually most of our patients. And to be honest the imaging centers do a great job of this as well. They’ll usually have kind of like a post-injection kind of form regardless of if they have a reaction to it. So I think that’s a really good best practice that we’ve seen across a lot of our imaging centers. But yeah, patients kind of have that information to just to watch out. And then a lot of these patients, you know, they’re getting the imaging study in the center, but they’re going to have really close follow up with the physician too, to who are going to be monitoring, you know, different kidney function levels, for example.

Jenn Callahan: And so so your er doctor. Right. Yeah. Do you also do though do virtual. Yeah. Supervision.

 Zack Timmons: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. No. So it’s fun to do kind of both. Obviously I don’t do them at the same time. But it’s kind of fun to use my skills that I, you know, have learned in the emergency department and bring them to the virtual space. So it’s been fun. And one of the things I’ve just really enjoyed doing is talking with all of the technologists. You know, I mentioned that the imaging application imaging is kind of the backbone of a lot of our healthcare system. But, I mean, the technologists are really doing the daily work to make that happen. It’s just been really fun getting to know them. And everyone has such interesting stories and they’re really passionate about, you know, the great patient care. So for me, being able to do all the training with the technologists has been a really, really fun.

Jenn Callahan: Yeah. It’s great. I mean, because you probably get it in person, you know, working in the ER, I’m sure that I know from personal experience working in the ER, you know, you talk to the doctors, talk to the nursing staff. You know, you have questions about, you know, the studies that are being ordered or the patient might. So I’m sure that you’re interacting with in person then, you know, virtual as well. So that’s nice. Also to have more of an understanding of it because you’re actually ordering the studies yourself, you know, so you know, when you’re in the ER. Just wanted to uh, talk a little bit about you right now, if that’s okay. Just want to share with our viewers, you know, kind of, you know, where you started Pre-medicine and then how you how you ended up here.

 Zack Timmons: Yeah. No, absolutely. You know, I’ve always just had a passion for medicine, primarily because I just love taking care of people. I went to undergrad at Rice University, and we actually have an incredible collegiate EMS system. And I actually remember one of my very first cases was an anaphylactic reaction. A student at, you know, eating peanuts in one of our local cafeterias. And our team had responded to that, you know, provided epinephrine. And he did great. And so, you know, just those experiences early on got me really excited about medicine and all the things we can do to help people. And at the same time, I’ve always been interested in innovation and entrepreneurship. So I actually worked in management consulting for a couple of years prior to going to medical school, actually helping with technology implementations at large health systems. So I kind of have that background as well. And so I think after attending medical school at a Dell medical school in Austin and then emergency medicine residency at UT Houston here in Texas, I’ve been able to kind of take all of those interests and really build them into what we’re doing here now at Contrast Coverage Texas. So it’s been fun to bring, you know, the medical side as well as the business and technology and innovation side into one place, which has been cool.

Jenn Callahan: Sure. I mean, you’ve got the whole background package, you know, to make a great company, which is amazing. And I’m sure that your co-founders are just the same. I was saying to him before we started recording, I’m like, all right, so you went into business and then you did med school. Wow. You have a lot of schooling.

Zack Timmons : Yeah.

 Zack Timmons: Yeah, absolutely. It’s been a very long road. But like I said, I really love what I do. I could tell people every day and work with a lot of great colleagues, technologists included. So it’s been great and looking forward to seeing kind of where things go. So yeah.

Jenn Callahan: We’re. Do you have future goals? You know, like for I’m sure you know, you always have like your six month possibly two year, you know, five year goals. You know, do you have a close goal for contrast coverage Texas that that you’re aiming for.

 Zack Timmons: Yeah. No. Absolutely. I mean right now we’ve been talking with imaging centers across the entire country. And so I think, you know, just getting to where we can serve even more imaging centers and help them out would be great. Are we going to have a team of about 40 physicians that work with us? I’d love to see that, you know, double in the next year and similarly with our imaging center groups. So I’m really looking forward to attending RSA this year. So that’ll be really fun. It’ll be my first time there, but we’ll have a booth at RSA and be able to kind of talk with everyone in the field, and I think that will be a cool way to kind of end the year. So yeah.

Jenn Callahan: I hear that the Cessna is great. You know, so many people that I’ve talked to, just overall great experience. You know, whether you have a booth or if you’re attending, you know, just to check out everything. It’s a good experience all around.

Zack Timmons : Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

Jenn Callahan: Well, I mean, you guys have an amazing company going on. I have to say that, you know, like you said, that currently at the time, you don’t have any competition in the market that you know of. Who knows, maybe if you go to Cessna, someone might have listened to this podcast and someone is going to be competing with you, who knows? But you guys truly are pioneers in this field, and it’s definitely a solution that is needed for many healthcare systems and then outpatient facilities, you know, all around. So kudos to you guys. For real.

 Zack Timmons: Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you again so much for having me. I think, you know, a big thing we’re excited about right now is just kind of helping share more about virtual supervision and the opportunities for not only the imaging centers and the radiology, radiologists and radiology groups. But, you know, ultimately for the patients who need the care. So I think, you know, just being able to provide more hours of contrasted studies, whether that’s after hours or on the weekend, will really make a difference for patients. So and yeah, thank you again so much for all that you all do as a tech as technologists because you all are really making this happen.

Jenn Callahan: So thank you. All right guys this is Jen and Zack. And we’re going to say good night for the night. But um anyone out there who’s looking for assistance with the contrast supervision please check out Contrast Coverage Texas. They’re doing some great work out there for the radiology field. So all right. See you. You’ve been watching the skeleton crew brought to you by X-ray tech. In the next episode, join us to explore the present and the future of the Rad Tech career and the field of radiology.