DESPITE facing downtime in one of its CT units, Image Plus Consultants Limited has showcased a robust revenue pulse in its third quarter (Q3), totalling $869.4 million — a remarkable 8.3 per cent increase of $66.6 million.

The company’s resilience is evident, as it successfully managed a mere 3 per cent decline in overall CT case count year over year, attributing this achievement to strategic measures.

“For Q2 [second quarter], it would have been much lower, but we made up enough by the number of appointments we were able to do in Q3 to bring us to only a small 3 per cent gap,” highlighted CEO Kisha Anderson in an interview with the
Jamaica Observer on Tuesday.

The direct relationship between CT scans and revenues was emphasised in the Q3 report, which revealed a total scan count of 44,306, marking an 8 per cent increase of 3,358 scans over the previous year. The company efficiently pivoted to on-call services and streamlined patient bookings at the two operational locations with functioning CT machines.

The medical technology services company resolved its CT scan downtime issues in August 2023 and anticipates further growth in the next quarter, benefiting from both operational CT scans and the newly implemented modality — mammograms completed the same month.

“We are well on our way in terms of the numbers anticipated for this first quarter. The mammogram numbers would have impacted our revenue for Q3. The MRI implementation is in progress, so there’s more revenue to go from that and the full impact of mammograms,” stated Anderson.

Image Plus currently has a 30 per cent ownership stake in Winchester MRI, which it refers to for MRI services, but the introduction of the MRI modality in the fourth quarter of 2024 would be the first MRI in Image Plus’s offerings.

“In Ocho Rios, St Ann, the referrals and demands for MRI are high, and so we decided that if we are going to do our own, that is where we would start first,” Anderson expressed to the
Business Observer.

These strategic expansions have substantially increased the company’s total assets to $1.5 billion, reflecting a 130 per cent increase over the corresponding period in the prior year. The acquisitions of medical equipment and property have contributed to a 14.2 per cent increase in direct costs. It also acquired land at 33 Lady Musgrave Road (33 LMR) as it seeks a permanent location for its future headquarters and relocation of the Winchester Road branch.

“This is a process that is going to take us 15 to 18 months at worst, so it will be in our financial year 2025 onwards,” said Anderson, giving a timeline for its completion.

Image Plus is now in the design phase of its future headquarters. In the meantime, administrative expenses grew by $8.7 million for Q3 FY2024, attributed to preparations for future revenue growth. However, Anderson explained to the
Business Observer that these costs are associated with efforts to prepare for future revenue growth.

“We would have to increase the technical staff, called radiographers, that we bring on board to deliver the scans…These costs would be ahead of when the revenue is coming,” she explained.

Despite these developments, the gross profit margin saw a slight decline from 65.9 per cent to 64.1 per cent for the nine months, and the profit before tax (PBT) of $164 million reflects a 9 per cent decline over the similar period for FY2023, primarily impacted by the downtime of one of its CT scans in the second quarter.