“Diagnostic services are basically tools to help test, diagnose, and monitor health conditions. So, typically those are found in lab or imaging environments.”

“OSMS has a lot of services that we can provide diagnostic testing with. The first and foremost one is probably just general X-ray. It’s a simple, easy, cost-effective way to assess for a fracture, a dislocation or deterioration in the bone. Once our physicians evaluate those radiographs, there are times where they want further evaluation for something they may not be able to see on the X-ray itself.

That’s where we get into something we would call MRI. So, MRI uses a very powerful magnet, radio waves and a computer to generate images of the soft tissue, muscles, organs, things of that sort. It’s really good for identifying meniscal tears, ACL tears or injuries, spine abnormalities or rotator cuff tears.

Ultrasound is also a really great way to identify things going on in the tendons, ligaments, muscles, joint spaces as well. It’s a very noninvasive procedure that use ultrasound waves to produce its images. So, we identify conditions like arthritis, tendonitis, carpal tunnel syndromes and things of that sort.

Then we move into what we call fluoroscopy. That’s probably one of my favorites because it’s a live video of your insides. So, we will use fluoroscopy to use as a way to identify needle placement, so our physicians know exactly the joint space or the area of interest they’re trying to reach when they’re injecting medication pre contrast for MRI scans and things of that nature.

Bone density is a very low dose X-ray that we utilize to identify how much calcium or what minerals are in the bone. Our rheumatology department is using this as an initiative right now to really identify how strong patients’ bones are or what their risk of fracture is.

And last but not least, we offer something called extremity CT scan. So, what that does is it gives us a 3D image allowing us to look for the same things like bone fractures, bone joint alignments, or any abnormalities that would be in the bone.”

“They are available to everyone. So, not just our patients within OSMS, but we have a lot of community members, affiliations and agreements with different people within the areas that come see us. But also, if you are not affiliated with anything OSMS or any healthcare organization for that matter, you can walk in, and we will take care of you the best that we can with the with the tools that we have.”