It ended so quietly, we almost missed it.

At the most recent certificate-of-need hearing held by the Health Services and Development Agency, Next Generation MRI was granted a roughly $2 million certificate of need to establish an outpatient imagining center with a new Fonar Upright or "stand-up" magnetic resonance imager, which provides a number of diagnostic advantages over the standard "lie-down" version.

In January, NashvillePost.com reported on a battle between Next Generation and its former partner, Premier Radiology. The two had previously joined forces to provide the upright imaging service and had even been granted a CON by the HSDA.

Following failed negotiations between the two sides, however, the partnership faltered, but the CON was still on the books under the joint venture's name, Premier Open Stand Up MRI LLC or "POSUM".

Premier applied for its own CON to be the sole provider of the service but was denied on the grounds that POSUM already held the one certificate the HSDA was willing to grant.

Next Generation filed its own application after partnering with Millennium MRI, a venture associated with Nashville orthopedic surgeon David McCord. At the recent HSDA meeting, Next Generation received unanimous approval.