Cassling, headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, is Siemens Healthineers's largest North American partner for medical imaging. Since 2001, the two companies have worked together to provide advanced technology, along with service and support, to healthcare organizations across 19 states.
Healthcare is a highly complex ecosystem, and providers today operate under extraordinary pressure. They are expected to deliver exceptional patient care while also navigating staffing shortages, rising costs and growing demand for access to care, often in communities where resources are limited.
To provide the best possible care for their patients, healthcare organizations need trusted partners they can rely on to meet those pressures, and it’s why Cassling exists. Established on the belief that providers deserve a partner who puts them first, Cassling has spent forty years connecting providers with the technology, services and solutions to transform patient outcomes. That commitment has never changed. What has changed is the value we’re able to deliver alongside it.
For the past 25 years and counting, Cassling has helped the healthcare industry meet today’s challenges by pairing trusted, local support with cutting-edge technology from Siemens Healthineers. It’s a partnership that’s reshaped how Siemens Healthineers’s innovative technology reaches communities. And it’s a partnership that, today, remains as strong as ever.
A Foundation Built on Customer Service
To understand how the partnership has endured, you have to go back to Cassling’s early beginnings in 1984.
That’s when Cassling’s founder, a 54-year-old Air Force veteran named Bob Cassling, set out to do something different. Instead of planning for retirement, Bob started a new diagnostic imaging company rooted in a simple philosophy: superior customer service comes first.
In 1985, Bob’s son Mike Cassling joined the team, becoming president in 1996. By the late 90s, Mike had sold the company’s consumables business and, with an eye towards digital, began looking for a new partner. Mike sought a partner whose values matched the ones his father baked into the company and who was equally focused on innovation in healthcare.
“While our competitors were focused on scale, Bob and Mike were focused on doing the best possible job for our customers,” said Kyle Salem, PhD, CEO and President of Cassling.
Putting customers first meant connecting providers with access to the best imaging technology. In 2001, Cassling found that partner in Siemens Healthineers, entering into a long-term agreement.
A Redefining Partnership
What started as a regional sales and service relationship rooted in the Midwest has grown into something much bigger. Today, Cassling acts as a local sales representative for Siemens Healthineers across 19 states as well as their primary service arm across the Midwest, connecting providers with the latest imaging technology and keeping equipment running at peak performance.
Along the way, Cassling has become the largest North American partner of Siemens Healthineers. Two expansion moments stand out in the partnership’s history. In 2013 and 2014, Cassling expanded out of its original five-state Midwest footprint into the Southern and Western US.
“I was a part of the team when we first rolled out the Cassling expansion in the West,” reflects Dave Swenson, VP and General Manager, Western Zone, Siemens Healthineers. “We were excited to be able to bring in a partner that was an extension of us, to help us fill some of the gaps. Cassling provided that opportunity to grow in markets we couldn’t cover with our own folks.”
For hospitals and clinics in those expanded territories, the change meant access to technology from Siemens Healthineers from people who live in their communities and understand their facilities, their staff and the patients they serve.
“Cassling has dedicated sales representatives,” said Heather Lewis, Area VP, Midwest MR, Siemens Healthineers. “They bring deep segment-specific knowledge, and they're allowing Siemens to better understand the customer needs and provide more targeted and effective support.”
In the South and the West, those customer relationships continue to grow over time. In the Midwest, where Cassling has served customers for forty years, that relationship runs even deeper, with field service engineers embedded in local communities and decades of partnership behind customer conversations.
“You can see from the sales side to the service side, Cassling has very strong insular relationships with all their customers,” said Tony Abunassar, VP of Value Partnerships, Siemens Healthineers. “The level of local knowledge about what’s going on within the institution benefits everyone in the end.”
The strength of the partnership and the trust built over time has created a seamless experience for customers across every region. For the hospitals and health systems choosing an imaging partner, that seamlessness means one relationship, one team, one goal to deliver outstanding customer service with state-of-the-art technology.
Looking Ahead to the Next 25 Years
When Cassling and Siemens Healthineers formalized our advanced partnership in 2001, neither side could predict everything the healthcare industry would face in the decades to come: the digital revolution, two recessions, a global pandemic, the rise of AI, the relentless pressure on hospital budgets and the ongoing fight to keep care local in rural communities.
Through it all, one thing has stayed true: when world-class technology meets local support, customers win. More than 25 years later, it’s a strategic advantage that continues to allow both companies to improve outcomes for patients across the country.
As healthcare continues to evolve, both organizations remain focused on helping customers adapt to new challenges, embrace emerging technologies and keep care close to home for the communities that rely on it.
“One thing we know for sure: the dynamics of our healthcare market will continue to change,” said Dave Swenson. “Having a partner like Cassling will give us more flexibility to change the way we need to change to be successful.”
That flexibility, paired with a shared commitment to the people who power healthcare, is what will continue to move the partnership forward and continue to positively impact healthcare.
“In my mind, Cassling is Siemens, Siemens is Cassling,” said Tony Abunassar, VP of Value Partnerships, Siemens Healthineers. “There is no separation, it’s just that smooth.”
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