Richard Smith has been reliant on his scans from Steinberg Diagnostic Medical Imaging to treat his rare form of cancer for 11 years. His most recent scan took over three weeks to come back after being told seven to 10 days.
“We are absolutely reliant on those scans because the scans tell them where the tumors are — how they progressed,” said his wife Susan Smith, 67.
Richard Smith, 75, has been battling bladder cancer since 2021 and liposarcoma for 11 years, a rare form of cancer that affects fatty tissues in the body. He has two subtypes of the liposarcoma, one of which is aggressive.
Normally, his Steinberg Diagnostic scans would come back within the week to be prepared for his appointments, until his most recent scan around June, which took 23 days to come back, despite being quoted seven to 10 days.
“We had to cancel two doctor’s appointments, thinking it’ll be in the following week,” said Susan Smith.
She called a Steinberg center and was told: “You have to wait in line. There’s no doctors to read the scans.”
Steinberg Diagnostic, a long-standing outpatient radiology imaging company in Nevada with 12 locations across the Las Vegas Valley, is “experiencing a backlog in some imaging results due to the national shortage of radiologists, with Southern Nevada being impacted “more severely than the rest of the country,” Intermountain Health said in a statement to the Las Vegas Review-Journal
“We understand that waiting for test results can be stressful, and we recognize the uncertainty these delays may create for patients and their families,” the statement continued.
Headquartered in Salt Lake City, Intermountain Health, a large nonprofit health system providing hospital, primary and specialty care across the Intermountain West, took over Steinberg Diagnostic in a phased acquisition starting Jan. 1.
Intermountain Health said it is working to address the backlog with plans to add approximately 20 radiologists and working to expedite licensure, credentialing, privileging and onboarding processes.
According to a 2025 report from Medicus Healthcare Solutions, Nevada has the lowest number of radiologists per capita, at just nine per 100,000 people.
Despite these efforts, patients like Smith still blame Intermountain’s acquisition of Steinberg Diagnostic for the delays, saying they have never experienced any issues like this before. On Yelp, some Steinberg locations’s ratings have dropped as low as 2.7 out of five stars, receiving swaths of one star reviews this year, starting around May, complaining about the wait times.
The Review-Journal spoke to about eight people regarding delays in receiving their test results from Steinberg Diagnostic.
Ken Krieger, 62, has an autoimmune disorder that affects his spine. He had a fusion done to stabilize the lower part of the spine, but the vertebrae above started to move. He needed an MRI to determine if he needed surgery.
Krieger’s doctor ordered a STAT MRI for his lumbar on July 14, which should have been read within 24 to 48 hours, according to Krieger. It was not read until July 31.
During those two and a half weeks, Krieger experienced extensive nerve damage affecting his left leg, causing him to fall three times, and eventually losing control over his bladder. Once the scans were received, his surgery was scheduled for Aug. 10.
“It was a daily decline, so everyday mattered, and they took two and a half weeks,” said his wife Laura Krieger, 61. “I don’t know if we can blame Steinberg for all of this, although they certainly have a part in it.”
The two had contacted Steinberg Diagnostic and were met with an automated AI chatbot over the phone. They sent an email complaint and eventually Laura Krieger “got desperate” and posted a review on Yelp.
Following the surgery, Ken Krieger said he was in an unbearable amount of pain and doctors could not give him enough pain medication.
“It didn’t have to be that bad,” he said. “If this would have been read even in the normal five to seven days, which is what they say under normal circumstances, the whole thing would have been better.”
Contact Emerson Drewes at edrewes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @EmersonDrewes on X.
