University of Michigan Functional MRI Laboratory

• New Users
• Proposal Submission
• User Request Form
• Sub-account Request
• Scheduling
  • Appointment Request
  • Room Scheduling
  • Calendars
    • Explorer MRI
    • Discovery MRI
    • Room 1104
• IRB Approval & Renewal
• Billing
• Project Termination
• Your Experiment
  • Prepare for Your Experiment
  • Safety Policies
  • Consent Forms
  • Policies and Procedures
• Data Processing
  • Pre-Processing
• Pilot Projects

Cost & Billing

Scan Cost

The current scan rate approved by the Office of Financial Analysis is $561 per hour with an effective date of 12/15/2023. When preparing grant proposals we advise project teams to budget $600 per hour in the initial budget period with a 3% per annum increase in subsequent years.

Cost Basis

Studies are charged only when subjects are in the scanner. Studies are charged in fifteen minute increments.

Service Unit Billings

Billing occurs monthly by Service Unit Billing.

Invoices

Invoices are distributed to the investigator, study coordinator, and billing contact cited on the user form. Attached is a copy of an example invoice. Each invoice includes investigator name, study nickname, exam number, subject number, and hours of scanner use.

A study seeking to send billing invoices to additional individuals should contact the Administrator.

Billing Changes

Studies that have a change in their billing information or IRB renewal should revise their user form. The investigator, study coordinator, or billing contact listed on the user form may log-in and submit changes to their user form.

Questions about uploading changes to billing information or IRB renewals should be directed to the Administrator.

Billing Sub-account Deficit Policy

To ensure that studies scanning at our Laboratory have sufficient funds to cover the costs of scans, a study/studies associated with a billing sub-account in deficit for more than two months may not be able to schedule additional scans until this deficit is resolved. A sub-account will be determined to be "in deficit" when : 1) the expenses on the sub-account exceeds the budget allocated to the sub-account, or 2) when aging receivable on the sub-account exceed 90 days, even in the case of a positive budget allocation on the sub-account.

Cancellation Policy

Due to increased cancellation rates in recent years the Functional MRI Laboratory needs to implement a cancellation policy with penalties.

After approval by the Office of Financial Services, the following policy took effect January 1, 2023:

Studies will be charged for 1 hour of scanner time under the following conditions:

• canceling less than 2 business days prior to their assigned slot time, due to recruitment (no subject scheduled).
• canceling less than 2 business days prior to their assigned slot time, due to staffing conflicts (exceptions given for sickness).
• study team no show at their assigned slot (with no cancellation or communication).

The rationale for the proposed late fee is driven by high study cancellation rates. For example, in September and October of 2022, 52% of the studies canceled, of which 55% were canceled less than 2 business days before the study. While some early cancellations may be filled by other studies, this is not typical. In our analysis, some of these cancellations resulted because the subject was sick, which is unpreventable. However, most of the cancellations were a direct result of the subject not being scheduled or not properly screened, and both situations are preventable.

For every scheduled slot, we have technologists scheduled; and not properly canceling a slot in time means other groups cannot use that time, leading to underutilization of both the MRI scanner and our staff. As good stewards of institutional resources, we believe these policies will result in more advance cancellation notifications which will enable more efficient utilization of resources and allow more groups to use available scanner slots.

We believe this practice will help decrease the number of late cancellations. We do not anticipate that this change will lead to substantially increased revenue, but rather will allow for better resource utilization and overall better service to the U-M research community.