When you’re innovative and a leader in your industry, it’s inevitable that competitors will copy you. Competition is healthy and drives the market to improve but not when the imitation is void of substance and just words on a page.
We are that kind of company in the MRI space. Driven by a business vision of offering patient-consumers the best-in-class quality, care and technology, we consistently introduce innovative concepts, cutting-edge technology and software and other imaging tools that no one else has.
We were the first imaging center in the country to offer the provider community ACR Select – a web-based clinical decision support tool that provides real-time feedback regarding the appropriateness of the exam being ordered.
We were the first in Michigan to offer weight-bearing imaging technology to simulate the pressure on the spine that standing or sitting creates.
We were the first exclusive MRI center in Michigan to offer NeuroQuant 3D volumetric software so physicians can better diagnose neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimers, Multiple Sclerosis and brain injury. And we’ve always been edgy and unique in our marketing efforts, standing out from the crowd in innovative ways.
Like when we designed a creative prescription form for doctors to send patients our way that made it very easy to demonstrate medical necessity based on the gold-standard criteria published by the American College of Radiology.
It’s a creative way to stand out from the crowd and showcase the many technologies M1 offers that most other MRI centers do not.
Recently, we learned a competitor has literally lifted our signature prescription pad word-for-word, style-for-style and made their own identical version. They didn’t even try to hide it. Imitation was simply plagiarism.
What’s more, this particular imaging center lifted every single word – meaning, they’re posing as a provider that offers the wide array of technologies and imaging services that only we offer. They don’t offer flexion and extension. They don’t offer weight-bearing MRI. They don’t have NeuroQuant for better diagnoses.
So, not only did they steal our marketing innovations, they’re falsely representing themselves to patients.
The eccentric 18th century English cleric, writer and collector Charles Caleb Colton is credited with being the first to say, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”
We’re trying to adopt that perspective and believe that when competitors copy our work, it means they want to be like us.
So thanks for the compliment, competing clinics. We just hope your quality care stands the test of time, like ours does.
