Moffitt Cancer Center Plans Major Lakeland Outpatient Campus
Moffitt Cancer Center has unveiled plans to build a major outpatient campus in Lakeland, Florida. The 34-acre site in Polk County, supported by a $10 million philanthropic gift, will expand Moffitt's regional footprint. The project highlights the ongoing migration of complex oncology and diagnostic imaging services to freestanding facilities.
- The Lakeland campus is part of a broader expansion for Moffitt, which includes the recently opened 775-acre Speros FL campus in Pasco County, a global innovation center intended to house 16 million square feet of lab, office, manufacturing, and clinical space. - This move into Polk County follows a significant increase in patients from the area, with Moffitt seeing over 1,450 new patients from the county in 2025 alone. - The shift to freestanding outpatient centers is a national trend, with forecasts predicting a 14% growth in advanced imaging volume in these settings over the next decade, outpacing the overall radiology market. Currently, about 40% of all radiology procedures are performed in outpatient clinics rather than acute-care hospitals. - This trend is partly driven by reimbursement policies. For 2026, Medicare's Physician Fee Schedule estimates a 3% decrease in reimbursement for hospital-based radiology services versus a 1% increase for services in non-facility settings like independent centers. - Florida's regulatory environment encourages such expansions, as the state repealed its Certificate of Need (CON) requirements for general and specialty hospitals in 2019 and 2021, respectively, removing significant barriers to entry and expansion. - Health systems are increasingly adopting centralized ambulatory strategies to improve patient access and scheduling, with many creating dedicated clinical staff for outpatient locations to avoid overlap with inpatient duties. - The rise of high-deductible health plans and price transparency tools is making patients more cost-sensitive, often favoring lower-cost outpatient imaging centers over hospital settings. However, one study found that while staff-generated cost estimates increased the likelihood of appointment completion, patients who generated their own estimates were less likely to complete the imaging. - To compete with the convenience of freestanding centers, some equipment manufacturers are developing smaller, more scalable imaging systems, like compact MRI or CT units, designed for outpatient clinics without sacrificing quality.
