I hear about private practice radiologists reading 100+ imaging studies per day. That sounds like a mental grind, volume per radiologist continues to increase while reimbursements steadily drop. When will there be a point that this stops? How is it possible to give good reads doing such a large volume?
It is doable. You can give good reads. But, it is really exhausting.
Normal studies are faster to read, but you also have to be really careful. You can easily miss an important finding among 5 normal CTs. In fact, it is less likely to miss subtle liver mets on a non con CT after reading 5 CTs with liver mets than 5 normal CTs from ED.
Though easier, still you have to go through your search pattern.
This will not stop at anytime. I am OK with it. If you don't like this work pace, you can work at VA or pseudoacademic places.
If you want to leave exactly at the assigned time, you will miss things.
Radiology in pp is a totally different world than academics. Also it is more difficult than many specialties. Nevertheless, I choose pp radiology over academics or other fields any time.
Despite being exhausting, the current model is sustainable. The story is totally different for IR guys. Most of them get burnt out after 8-10 years of practice and either continue as light IR( tubes, lines, biopsies, drains, LPs, thoras, once ina blue moon high end procedue) or switch back to DR. The draw back is that most have lost their DR skills if they have worked 100 percent IR.
