Wellness

[gardenman]

Pretty much everything involving radiation is tightly regulated by the government. I believe any facility supplying radiation therapy must comply with EPA, NRC, and FDA rules that can be burdensome. (To put it mildly.) It's typically cheaper/easier to just refer someone to another facility that's willing to jump through all of the regulatory headaches and inspections. Between construction costs, equipment costs, regulatory costs, and staff costs, you need a large base of customers to offset those costs and with more and more patients benefitting from the more targeted chemo agents, there are fewer and fewer patients needing radiation therapy. It's bad if you're one of those needing a specific therapy, but it is what it is. If a cancer center thought there was a profit to be made from radiation therapy, they'd offer it.

[lovesrecess]

there seem to be many free-standing storefront clinics now for dialysis, chemo, radiation, bloodwork, etc. Started with gov't involvement in healthcare; hospitals aren't the hub of healthcare anymore in many places.