Permission Not Needed for West Virginia Hospital’s Off-Site MRI

A West Virginia hospital can buy a new magnetic resonance imaging scanner to be used at an off-site location without a certificate of need, the state’s top court said.

Nothing in the state’s law governing the acquisition of MRI scanners limits their use to a hospital’s primary location, the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals said.

The court overturned a decision by the West Virginia Health Care Authority that denied War Memorial Hospital Inc. permission to buy a scanner without first applying for a CON.

Memorial’s main site is located in Berkeley Springs, and it wanted to buy an MRI ...