Imaging Center Feasibility Study

Questions buyers ask

Who prepares a feasibility study for a diagnostic imaging center loan?

Loan Analytics prepares it, working for the lender's file rather than for the sponsor's pitch, with Daniel Smith, MAI signing the conclusion. We write to whichever program finances the center, a 7(a) or 504 loan under SBA, a Business and Industry loan with USDA's guarantee, or plain bank credit, and the study measures the subject against the SBA imaging record printed on this page: 298 7(a) loans and 29 504 loans in FY2017 to FY2026, and 1,111 7(a) and 114 504 loans across the full record. The lender sees where the request sits in that record by state, metro and loan size, and gets the evidence on referrals, payers and equipment that no loan file can supply.

Will the bank make me commission a feasibility study for an imaging center?

The lender decides that under its credit policy and the rules of its program, and no table settles it for one file. The record shows why imaging requests draw the question: the charge-off floor is 8.2% for 7(a) imaging loans disbursed over FY2017 to FY2021, the cancellation floor on 7(a) imaging approvals of FY2017 to FY2024 is 13.6%, and 504 imaging loans carry no rate at all because none of their cohorts reaches 30 loans. Scanners lose value fast and shielded rooms suit few other users, so a lender cannot lean on the collateral; it leans on the projection, and the study is where the projection gets tested.

How much does an imaging center feasibility study cost?

The answer on this site comes from our 2026 fee survey, which records what study providers publish. Providers put a one-site SBA study of an ordinary special-purpose property at $5,000 to $12,500. Complex SBA work, a tier the survey illustrates with phased building, multi-site projects, unusual concepts and ground-up hotels, is put at $10,000 to $25,000. Studies meeting USDA's rule at 7 CFR Part 5001 carry a published floor of $7,500 and run beyond $18,750. The survey gives no imaging example, and it records that SBA does not fix or cap what a study costs. A study for one added scanner in a running center belongs nearer the lowest band than a new multi-modality center does, and the fee itself comes with our reply to your scope request.

How long does an imaging center feasibility study take?

We fix the timing when we answer the scope request, working back from the lender's own due date, rather than quoting a standard period. In an imaging study the time goes into evidence from outside the sponsor's own file: letters or referral data from the physician groups, the competing scanners in the trade area, the payer contracts signed or under negotiation, and quotes for equipment, shielding and installation. A sponsor with those documents in hand shortens the work. One still negotiating referral agreements should order the study early, because those agreements are what a lender in Florida, where the cancellation floor is 24.4%, or in Texas, at 18.8%, will want on file before closing.

What does an imaging center feasibility study test?

Demand comes first: which physician groups and hospitals are expected to refer, for which modalities, and how many scans each can supply within the subject's trade area. Then reimbursement by payer and procedure; the competing centers and hospital outpatient departments; the cost of each scanner with its shielding, power, cooling and service contract; the staff a center of that size needs; and a replacement schedule for every machine. The coverage test runs through the ramp and well past the fifth year, because the class's 7(a) charge-off figure is 4.1% within 5 years but 8.2% to date. The real estate is valued apart from the equipment.

How many SBA loans have gone to imaging centers?

Across the full record, which becomes measurable in FY2001, SBA lenders approved 1,111 7(a) loans for $557.3 million and 114 504 loans for $94.9 million to diagnostic imaging centers. In FY2017 to FY2026 the figures are 298 7(a) loans for $234.4 million and 29 504 loans for $30.7 million. The busiest single year was FY2007, with 78 7(a) loans; the quietest measured 7(a) year was FY2020, with 15. In years when the files leave more than a small share of loans without a usable industry code, the count is a floor, so the true number can be higher.

What size SBA loan do imaging centers usually get?

Under 7(a) the median imaging loan in FY2017 to FY2026 is $350,000, with quartiles at $125,450 and $948,300. Under 504 the median is $712,000, with quartiles at $441,000 and $1.2 million. Loans run larger in the big metros: the median is $647,000 in Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, $751,250 in New York-Newark-Jersey City and $842,500 in Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim. By state, Florida's median is $485,000, California's $475,150 and Texas's $309,450.

Which SBA program fits an imaging center, 7(a) or 504?

That decision sits with the sponsor and its lender; this page can only show how imaging projects have used each program. 7(a) carries almost all of the class, 298 loans in FY2017 to FY2026 against 29 under 504. The 504 loans are larger, with a median of $712,000 against $350,000, and none falls in the smallest size band. 7(a) has the measured loss record, an 8.2% charge-off floor; 504 has no rate, its cohorts being under 30 loans. Loan Analytics writes the study to whichever program the lender uses, and for a 504 project it adds the value of the real estate apart from the equipment.

How often do SBA imaging center loans fail?

For imaging loans disbursed under 7(a) during FY2017 through FY2021, the charge-off floor to date is 8.2%, and 4.1% of those loans were charged off inside 5 years of funding. A floor is a minimum, so the real rate may sit above it but not below. The 504 program shows the under-30 label in place of a rate, and that label means no evidence either way, not an absence of losses. Neither the state rows nor the metro rows give the class a charge-off floor of their own, so the national 7(a) figure is the only measured loss rate an imaging study can cite.

Why are so many imaging center loan approvals cancelled?

SBA's data marks the cancellation without giving a reason. What the page measures is frequency: the cancellation floor on 7(a) imaging approvals of FY2017 to FY2024 is 13.6%, and the state floors are 24.4% in Florida, 18.8% in Texas and 4.3% in California. An imaging deal rests on pieces that can come apart after approval, among them the referral agreements, the equipment order, the site and the payer contracts, so a study that documents each of them before the lender commits is the most direct answer a sponsor can give to that history.

Which states have the most SBA imaging center loans?

California leads FY2017 to FY2026 with 62 loans and $55.6 million. Florida is second on 55 loans, and its $50.6 million is close behind California's total; Texas is third on 40 loans and $32.5 million. New York is fourth by count with 22 loans but ahead of Texas in dollars at $38.5 million. New Jersey has 17 loans and $12.0 million and Illinois 13 loans and $8.0 million. Every other state on the table has 9 loans or fewer, and outside California, Florida and Texas no state has the loan count for a median or a cancellation floor of its own.

What does a Florida lender want to see in an imaging center study?

Florida is where imaging approvals most often failed to fund: its cancellation floor is 24.4%, against 13.6% for 7(a) imaging nationally. Its median loan, $485,000, is above the national 7(a) median, and it holds 10 of the decade's 29 504 imaging loans. Most of its record sits in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metro, with 32 loans, $30.7 million and a $647,000 median. A lender reading a Florida study will look for the closing items settled in writing, and for proof that the subject can draw referrals where other SBA-financed centers already compete.

Which metro areas see the most imaging center lending?

Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach leads by count, with 32 loans in FY2017 to FY2026 for $30.7 million. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim and New York-Newark-Jersey City each have 30, for $36.3 million and $41.7 million. Those are the only metro rows the page prints for the class, and their charge-off floors are withheld. The New York metro has the largest dollar total of the group, and its $751,250 median sits between Miami's $647,000 and Los Angeles's $842,500.

Can you prepare an imaging center study for a USDA Business and Industry loan?

Yes. Loan Analytics writes imaging studies for USDA's Business and Industry guarantee as well as for SBA and conventional lenders. Our 2026 fee survey reports that USDA asks for a study on a loan to a new business above $1 million, that 7 CFR Part 5001 governs its content, and that published fees for that standard start at $7,500 and run past $18,750. Nothing on this page is a USDA loan record; every table here counts SBA loans. A USDA imaging study therefore makes its market case from the referrers, payers and competitors around the site, and reads the SBA rows for comparable loan sizes and loss floors.

What other reports will the lender order besides the feasibility study?

Our 2026 fee survey lists the rest of the third-party stack with published costs. An appraisal of the commercial real estate is published at $2,500 to $7,500, rising to a $5,000 to $15,000 range when the property is special-purpose and valued as a going concern. An environmental questionnaire with a records search costs $300 to $1,500; if it escalates to a Phase I, the standard range is $2,000 to $5,000; and recording, title and survey together add $2,000 to $5,000 more. For an imaging center the appraisal and the study answer different questions: the appraisal values the property, and the study tests whether referrals, payers and costs support the debt, including the replacement of scanners the building's value does not carry.

Is a study for buying an existing imaging center different from one for a new center?

Yes, in scope. Our 2026 fee survey notes that buying an operating business with its statements is a shorter study than a ground-up project with no history, because much of the new project's work is establishing the ramp. The record does not separate purchases from new centers, but it shows how wide the class runs: 98 7(a) loans in the smallest size band for $7.6 million, and 33 in the top occupied band for $113.1 million. For a purchase the study reads the center's scan history by modality and referrer, tests whether that volume depends on physicians who could leave with the seller, and checks each machine's age against the loan term; for a new center it builds volume up from the referral base, month by month.

Does this loan record include hospital imaging departments and radiology groups?

No. The counts follow the industry code each borrower carries in SBA's files, and only the code for diagnostic imaging centers is counted here. Radiologists who interpret images but own no center are classed with physician offices, and imaging that hospitals own is financed outside these SBA programs, so neither shows in the counts. That matters for a study in two ways. The scanners in hospital outpatient departments will not appear in any SBA count, so they have to be found and counted directly as competitors. And a radiology group that opens a center of its own should expect the lender to read the request against this class, with its 8.2% 7(a) charge-off floor, rather than against the record of physician offices.

Do imaging center loans in New York run larger than in other states?

The New York row prints no median, but its 22 loans total $38.5 million, more than Texas's 40 loans at $32.5 million, and the New York-Newark-Jersey City metro's median of $751,250 is well above the national 7(a) median of $350,000. Georgia shows the same pattern on a smaller scale, with 6 loans for $9.3 million. A study for a large project in either state cannot borrow the national median as its benchmark; it has to show that the trade area's referrers and payers support a center of the cost proposed.

What should I send to get an imaging center study scoped?

The site and its trade area, the modalities and the scanners you plan to install or acquire, the physician groups and hospitals you expect to refer and any agreements with them, the payer mix you assume, the program and the lender, and the lender's deadline. With those facts we place the request on this page's record, for instance against the $350,000 7(a) median or the $712,000 504 median and against the state row that applies, and the scope we return says which of the questions in this record the study has to answer for your file.