If you think that residents don't increase a private group's productivity, then you are mistaken. Even when it comes to procedures, our attendings do ZERO procedures, we do ALL procedures. Many of our attendings don't even know how to do them, so if we did not do them they could not bill for them. As you were mentioning with call, residents are the ones who take weekend and overnight call, so attendings and the private group save a ton of money (a good 500k +) by having a residency. Otherwise they would have to pay nighthawk. It doesn't matter what *may* happen in the future, our current hospital does not require attending reads overnight or on weekends, which are still being done by residents. If the residents did not do all the work they do, how do you think they would do it? Oh right, by having to hire more radiologists and paying them an attending salary, which would reduce in turn the group's profits. I don't know what you are talking about other private groups, I'm talking about the very real example of my rads program for example that's a private group that uses the residency program to get the best of both worlds, and saves a ton of $$ and makes far more $$ than they would did they not have a residency.