New Hampshire

Massachusetts doctors opt for New Hampshire imaging centers – Valley News

Published

5 months ago

October 11, 2025

Massachusetts doctors opt for New Hampshire imaging centers – Valley News

This past summer, one of Dr. Amy Boutwell’s patients needed an imaging test done, but Lahey Hospital and Medical Center, which is down the road from her practice in the Boston suburb of Lexington, Mass., told her it would be a five-month wait.

“And I said, ‘Gosh, there’s got to be a better way,’” Boutwell said. “The question that came to my mind was, ‘Isn’t there some sort of independent imaging center where I don’t have to send her through the big, expensive, and busy health care system?’”

Her search turned up nothing nearby in Massachusetts. But located 30 miles north, just over the state line in Nashua, she found Tellica Imaging. She learned the newly opened independent imaging center could take her patient the next day and at a much lower cost. It worked out so well, she began sending more patients there. Boutwell’s status as an independent doctor made it possible. Doctors working in big health systems, she said, typically send patients to the imaging facilities within their own system.

“We live in Metro Boston. We’re used to using large health care systems,” Boutwell said. “This patient might have said, ‘I know and trust the health care infrastructure of Massachusetts,’ but instead, I think it’s really telling in this day and age, patients want access. They want transparency around pricing. They want easy and convenient. Of course, we need to know that the quality is going to be high and trustworthy. But for me as a doctor, and for my patient, in this case, we both were really compelled by, ‘It’s quick and it’s easy and it’s inexpensive,’ so let’s go to New Hampshire.”

For the longest time, Boutwell was perplexed as to why she couldn’t find centers like Tellica closer to her.

“I just thought, how’s it possible here in the medical mecca of the world, I don’t have an independent imaging center?” Boutwell said. “And I didn’t really know why.”

Many point to a primary culprit: “certificate of need” laws, which require health care providers to seek permission from state regulators for any new services they’d like to provide.

Under the laws, providers must prove to regulators that any new proposed services are necessary. Certificate of need laws also allow would-be competitors to weigh in and contest applications by arguing they already offer the service and, as such, a new provider is unnecessary.

The laws have been in place in some states since the 1960s, but the 1974 National Health Planning and Resources Development Act mandated every state institute them. Proponents believed the laws would restrain health care costs, increase quality, and provide better access to care for traditionally underserved communities. However, many experts in the field argue they’ve done the opposite. Congress repealed its federal certificate of need mandate in 1986, but 35 states, including Massachusetts, still have the laws on the books, according to the National Academy for State Health Policy. The laws vary based on what types of care are subject to the laws and how the process works.

New Hampshire is the only New England state without certificate of need laws.

Dr. Jeffrey Gold, a direct primary care physician in Salem, Mass., is another Bay State doctor who sends patients to independent New Hampshire imaging centers. He said Derry Imaging, which is roughly 45 miles away from his practice, might charge around $700 for an MRI. However, Gold said that at one of the large health systems in Massachusetts, such as Mass General Brigham, “you’re shooting a dart in the wind.” He said a patient won’t know exactly what they’re being charged until after the MRI is complete. In some cases, Gold said, once insurance and the health system finish negotiating the patient could be asked to pay roughly $1,500 (while insurance pays another $1,500).

Gold provides a unique type of care called direct primary care, where patients pay a monthly fee out-of-pocket for unlimited access to his services. He said this allows him more time with patients and to consider patients’ costs, among other things. He often advises patients to go to independent imaging centers in New Hampshire, even if their insurance won’t cover it, because paying Derry Imaging out-of-pocket is often cheaper for patients with high-deductible insurance policies. Though he notes he can sometimes get good prices at private orthopedic centers for some services, those facilities are increasingly being purchased by larger health systems.

In Massachusetts, Gold argues certificate of need laws have constrained the free market because when big health systems like Lahey and Mass General already offer imaging, it makes it harder for smaller providers to prove their services are needed. However, New Hampshire repealed its certificate of need laws in 2016 and so this phenomena hasn’t occurred here.

Indeed, analysis from the Mercatus Center, a think tank based at George Mason University, estimated in 2020 that Massachusetts nonhospital providers would’ve likely performed 80,388 MRIs annually if the state had no certificate of need laws as opposed to the 58,960 it did perform. The organization also estimated that without certificate of need laws, nonhospital providers would’ve performed 758 PET scans as opposed to 420. The researchers found no statistically significant change for hospital providers, suggesting the laws could be protecting hospitals from competition. The analysis estimated that, across all services subject to certificate of need laws, annual health care spending would’ve fallen $320 per capita without the laws.

“Neither theory nor evidence suggest that CON (certificate of need) laws work as advertised,” researcher Matthew Mitchell wrote in a 2024 report in the academic journal Inquiry. “While advocates for the regulation have offered several rationales for its continuance, the balance of evidence suggests that the rules protect incumbent providers from competition at the expense of patients, payors, and would-be competitors.”

In New England, this has created an interesting dynamic. Patients in southern New Hampshire often travel to the Boston area for treatment at larger hospitals. However, as costs and wait times rise in Massachusetts, doctors say it makes sense to go the opposite direction for certain services. Boutwell said the “cost of care in Massachusetts and access to care in Massachusetts is at an all time high and an all time low.”

“This is not a story of people who can’t afford care going to New Hampshire,” she said. “With the classic cycle of people from the north coming into Boston, you might think, ‘Well, maybe people who are price sensitive will be people who don’t have access, you know, people who don’t have the money.’ But in this case, we’ve got all the benefits of who we are, and we’re making an educated choice to say, ‘You know what? Let’s go to New Hampshire.’”

Mass General and Lahey declined to comment.

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New Hampshire

Cher’s son heads to court over allegations he broke into a New Hampshire home

Published

4 hours ago

March 11, 2026

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Cher’s son heads to court over allegations he broke into a New Hampshire home

The son of Cher is scheduled to be in court Wednesday for a hearing over allegations he broke into a New Hampshire home earlier this month.

It was the second arrest in a matter of days for Elijah Allman, 49, of Malibu, California, who was detained Feb. 27 after allegedly acting belligerently at a prestigious prep school in New Hampshire. It was unclear if Allman had any connection to either St. Paul’s School or the home in Windham, New Hampshire.

Allman remains in the Rockingham County Department of Corrections in what is called preventive detention, Superintendent Jonathan Banville said.

Allman, whose father was the late singer Gregg Allman, faces two counts of criminal mischief, one count of burglary and a count of breach of bail for breaking into the home on March 1. Police said in a report that Allman did not have permission to be at the home and forcibly entered it .

In the incident at the prep school, Allman was charged with four misdemeanors: two counts of simple assault, criminal trespass and criminal threatening. Allman was also charged with a violation of disorderly conduct, which is illegal in the state but not considered a crime.

At about 7 p.m. that day, Concord police responded to reports that Allman was disturbing people in the dining hall of St. Paul’s School. After charging Allman, police said he was released on bail as his case works through the court system.

Allman did not respond to an email requesting comment, and a phone number for him was not working. It was unclear from the court records if Allman has an attorney.

In December 2023, Cher filed a petition to become a temporary conservator overseeing her son’s money, saying Allman struggles with mental health issues and addiction have left him unable to manage his assets and potentially put his life in danger.

The petition from the singer and actress said Elijah Allman is entitled to regular payments from a trust fund. But “given his ongoing mental health and substance abuse issues,” she is “concerned that any funds distributed to Elijah will be immediately spent on drugs, leaving Elijah with no assets to provide for himself and putting Elijah’s life at risk,” the petition says.

A few weeks later, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Jessica Uzcategui denied the request, saying she was not convinced that a conservatorship was urgently needed. Allman was in the courtroom with his his attorneys, who acknowledged his previous struggles but argued that he is in a good place now, attending meetings, getting treatment and reconciling with his previously estranged wife.

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New Hampshire

Senate panel endorses reporting exemption for players on New Hampshire Fisher Cats

Published

17 hours ago

March 10, 2026

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Senate panel endorses reporting exemption for players on New Hampshire Fisher Cats

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New Hampshire

Possible 2028 Democratic White House contenders weigh in on Iran with New Hampshire voters

Published

1 day ago

March 10, 2026

Press Room

Possible 2028 Democratic White House contenders weigh in on Iran with New Hampshire voters

As the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran overtakes the foreign policy debate in Washington, two Democratic governors with potential 2028 presidential aspirations — Gavin Newsom and Andy Beshear — recently traveled to New Hampshire, introducing themselves to the state’s famously engaged voters. The two weighed in on the war and both criticized and questioned President Trump’s strategy and endgame.

“If a president is going to take a country into war, and risk the lives of American troops and Americans in the region, he has to have a real justification and not one that seems to change every five to 10 hours,” Beshear told CBS News after a Democratic fundraiser in Keene.

“This President seems to use force before ever trying diplomacy, and he has a duty to sell it to the American people and to address Congress with it,” Beshear continued. “He hasn’t done any of that. In fact, it appears there isn’t even a plan for what success looks like. He’s gone from regime change to strategic objectives and now is talking about unconditional surrender, which isn’t realistic where he is.”

Beshear also said he thought that Congress should have reined in Mr. Trump’s war powers.

“He is trying to ignore Congress. He’s trying to even ignore the American people,” Beshear said.

He went on to note that the president’s State of the Union address took place “three — four days before he launched this attack,” and Mr. Trump “didn’t even have the respect to tell the American people the threat that he thought Iran posed to us.”

Last week, both the House and the Senate failed to pass resolutions to limit Mr. Trump’s war powers and stop him from taking further military action against Iran without congressional support.

Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear speaks with voters in Keene, New Hampshire, on March 7, 2026.

Anne Bryson

For Newsom, the war with Iran constitutes part of a broader criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

At an event last Tuesday in Los Angeles, Newsom had compared Israel to an “apartheid state.” Later, in New Hampshire, he sought to clarify his comment.

“I was specifically referring to a Tom Friedman [New York Times] column last week, where Tom used that word of apartheid as it relates to the direction Bibi is going, particularly on the annexation of the West Bank,” Newsom explained during a book tour event Thursday night in Portsmouth. “I’m very angry, with what he is doing and why he’s doing it, what he’s going to ultimately try to do to the Supreme Court there, what he’s trying to do to save his own political career.”

Friedman wrote that at the same time that the U.S. and Israel are prosecuting a war in Iran, within Israel, Netanyahu’s government has undertaken efforts to annex the West Bank, driving Palestinians from their homes; fire the attorney general who is leading the prosecution against Netanyahu for corruption; and block the government’s attempt to establish a commission to examine the failures that led up to the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of Jews by Hamas.

CBS News has reached out to the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., for comment.

On Iran, Newsom said, “I’m very angry about this war, with all due respect, you know, not because I’m angry the supreme leader is dead. Quite the contrary. I’m not naive about the last 37 years of his reign. Forty-seven years since ’79 — the revolution,” Newsom said. “But I’m also mindful that you have a president who still is inarticulate and incapable of giving us the rationale of why? Why now? What’s the endgame?”

California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks with political commentator Jack Cocchiarella at an event in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on March 5, 2026.

Anne Bryson

Many attendees at Newsom’s book event said that the situation in Iran is a top-of-mind issue for them, too. Some said they’re “horrified” by what is happening.

29-year-old Alicia Marr told CBS News she decided to attend Newsom’s event because of his social media response to the war with Iran.

“There was one spot left, and I decided to pick it up, and it was due to his response to the war, that it is just unacceptable, and I would agree with that,” Marr said.

While some voters like Marr are eager to hear about where potential candidates stand on foreign policy, many at Newsom’s event said they care most about how potential candidates plan to address domestic issues.

“I’m more focused on getting the middle class back on track and fighting the oligarchy, and I’m less invested in international issues,” said Anita Alden, who also attended Newsom’s event,

“I wouldn’t call myself America first, but we have so many problems at home that are my priority,” she told CBS News.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris, who may also be weighing another White House bid, told Fox 2 Detroit last week that she “unequivocally opposes” the Trump administration’s military action in Iran and urged Congress to take action.

“If we want to stop Donald Trump with this random decision that he has arrived at, then Congress must act, and Congress must act immediately. The American people do not want our sons and daughters to go into this unauthorized war of choice,” Harris said.

Mr. Trump has lashed out against Democrats who have pushed back on his Iran strategy, calling them “losers” last week and arguing that they would criticize any decision he made on Iran.

“If I did it, it’s no good. If I didn’t do it, they would have said the opposite, that you should have done this,” the president said.