Are any teleradiology jobs any good?

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Steve_Zissou

Steve_Zissou

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I’m only an R1 but I get emails every now and then for open positions and have seen quite a few swing shift teleradiology jobs that seem to pay well and offer 1 on 2 off. I guess my question is, what’s the catch? Their salaries seem in line with daytime salaries/slightly less. Why would someone not want a job like that if they’re reading swing/evening shift for the east coast while living out west?
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The devil in details.

One week on two weeks off may not pay as well as you expect.

Night work sucks.
 
If you are single or at least don’t have kids (and have a partner that is okay with weird or off-hours schedules), you can do very well in 1 on, 2 off gigs. The off hours are usually paid at a premium and you have 2 weeks off to pick up additional work if you want to.
 
Steve_Zissou said:
I’m only an R1 but I get emails every now and then for open positions and have seen quite a few swing shift teleradiology jobs that seem to pay well and offer 1 on 2 off. I guess my question is, what’s the catch? Their salaries seem in line with daytime salaries/slightly less. Why would someone not want a job like that if they’re reading swing/evening shift for the east coast while living out west?
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It's all about your compensation/wRVU. For traditional nighthawk companies, you are likely reading 40-50% more volume to make the same as a partner in a legit private practice...Also what are you reading? Bread and butter community stuff or level 1 trauma/stroke center etc

There are increasing opportunities to work off-site/tele for private practice and even academics. For private practice you are prob making around 20% less (or reading 20% more) compared to "boots-on-the-ground" rads. Partnership may or may not be an option.

Regardless, when looking at any job you need to make sure that you wRVU production percentile is concordant with your income percentile

Hard to say what things will look like by the time you are out of training
 
private practice will hire you for a remote night job 4 year partner tract at 25th percentile pay for promise of >75% pay "once you make partner." Then fire you in 3 years and hire another. Pass.
 
LegendaryBibimbap said:
private practice will hire you for a remote night job 4 year partner tract at 25th percentile pay for promise of >75% pay "once you make partner." Then fire you in 3 years and hire another. Pass.
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I hate to make it seem like I'm chasing you across threads, but this logic is absolutely ridiculous. I don't care who it is: academics, VA, PE, PP.... if a group successfully recruits an evening/overnight person and they are good at their job... they are not getting fired for no reason.

I've been in group leadership and recruitment meetings for a PP group. Recruiting after-hours shift people is one of the single hardest tasks in radiology recruitment right now.
 
OFC the PP will always have a reason. Local PP told me they let they remote after-hours shift guy go during their associate workup because they weren't productive enough. That is always going to be the stated reason.

But the setup is: 300-400k for 3-4 years until partner salary with no productivity incentive. So the remote guy reads what he thinks is reasonable without doing extra, but that results in what the practice sees as the bare minimum. If the practice was actually intelligent, they would see they are incentivizing garbage recruits, because what efficient rad is not going for a pay-per click or higher pay employed alternative in that scenario? And therein lies the conflict between associate and churn and burn PP.
 
LegendaryBibimbap said:
OFC the PP will always have a reason. Local PP told me they let they remote after-hours shift guy go during their associate workup because they weren't productive enough. That is always going to be the stated reason.

But the setup is: 300-400k for 3-4 years until partner salary with no productivity incentive. So the remote guy reads what he thinks is reasonable without doing extra, but that results in what the practice sees as the bare minimum. If the practice was actually intelligent, they would see they are incentivizing garbage recruits, because what efficient rad is not going for a pay-per click or higher pay employed alternative in that scenario? And therein lies the conflict between associate and churn and burn PP.
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You have a level of cynicism for the process which is crazy for someone who hasn't left training.

Groups (at least in 2024) don't fire/let someone unless there is a big problem. It could be personality, speed, quality or some combination there of. I don't think you have any clue how much time, effort and money goes into recruiting and on-boarding people. Recruiting alone is 4 figures between ads, dinners, and usually a partner taking a day off to shepherd the interviewee around ($2-3k value depending on the group). Onboarding for my group is tens of thousands of dollars in med staff application fees. Groups aren't throwing that time/effort/money away for no reason.

The situation you described is IMO a tragedy, albeit a very believable one. If the group did not make clear their expectations for the associate (which I would be surprised) and the associate did not actually seek out feedback on if he was doing enough (less so surprised) then it was a comedy of errors and a real shame. More likely, that associate was legit not good enough.

I'm just going to throw this out there. PP is not easy. Not every one is cut out for time/effort/volume involved. Some of that is quality based. Some is speed. Some people really really don't have the personality to operate in that environment. In my short career spanning 1 PE group and now 1 PP group, I've seen 1 person not extended partnership. He is legit the worst radiologist I have seen in my career. Like imagine the dregs of your residency program, and then imagine king of those turds.

Not throwing stones at you in particular cuz I don't know you, but anyone who was the bottom tier of their training program is probably a bad fit for PP. That's on both the trainee for shooting for a job they don't have the means of succeeding in, and on the group for being stuck recruiting said turd. My comments refer to the middle two standard deviations of rads; if you are semi normal, semi-smart, and work hard then achieving partnership is a very high likelihood.
 
guytakingboards said:
You have a level of cynicism for the process which is crazy for someone who hasn't left training.

Groups (at least in 2024) don't fire/let someone unless there is a big problem. It could be personality, speed, quality or some combination there of. I don't think you have any clue how much time, effort and money goes into recruiting and on-boarding people. Recruiting alone is 4 figures between ads, dinners, and usually a partner taking a day off to shepherd the interviewee around ($2-3k value depending on the group). Onboarding for my group is tens of thousands of dollars in med staff application fees. Groups aren't throwing that time/effort/money away for no reason.

The situation you described is IMO a tragedy, albeit a very believable one. If the group did not make clear their expectations for the associate (which I would be surprised) and the associate did not actually seek out feedback on if he was doing enough (less so surprised) then it was a comedy of errors and a real shame. More likely, that associate was legit not good enough.

I'm just going to throw this out there. PP is not easy. Not every one is cut out for time/effort/volume involved. Some of that is quality based. Some is speed. Some people really really don't have the personality to operate in that environment. In my short career spanning 1 PE group and now 1 PP group, I've seen 1 person not extended partnership. He is legit the worst radiologist I have seen in my career. Like imagine the dregs of your residency program, and then imagine king of those turds.

Not throwing stones at you in particular cuz I don't know you, but anyone who was the bottom tier of their training program is probably a bad fit for PP. That's on both the trainee for shooting for a job they don't have the means of succeeding in, and on the group for being stuck recruiting said turd. My comments refer to the middle two standard deviations of rads; if you are semi normal, semi-smart, and work hard then achieving partnership is a very high likelihood.
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That is correct, I am cynical because everyone parrots the "job market is hot" meme online but in reality I got 300-350k starting offers in the midwest even with willing to do mammo, and my residency is filled with ex-private practice partners who were screwed over in private practice. When y'all are selling left and right to radpartners, don't be surprised when trainees think you're bending over the next generation of radiologists.

AGAIN I am telling you I have 500k+ starting offers from employee models to compare to right out of fellowship. and BTW I'm top 3 in RVU in a large class at a university program. Why do PP when I can make more per hour in a pay per click job.
 
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One of my former PP attendings told me they decided back in the day to not make a guy partner right before the end of their two year tract. Guess when they told him? The day after the poor guy was going around sharing pictures of the brand new house they just bought. 1.9 years in to the job of course 😂
 
LegendaryBibimbap said:
One of my former PP attendings told me they decided back in the day to not make a guy partner right before the end of their two year tract. Guess when they told him? The day after the poor guy was going around sharing pictures of the brand new house they just bought. 1.9 years in to the job of course 😂
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Why’d they deny partnership?
 
LegendaryBibimbap said:
"productivity concerns"
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I like how you put that in quotations, as if that's not a real thing or that you have any additional insight into that situation than that.

I've been on the other side. I've seen associates doing 30 RVU's a day when the group/partner average is closer to 70. That very thing happened in my last group just a few years ago. The group ultimately gave the gave that guy a lot of rope. He got into the "two standard deviation from the mean" range and did get advanced to partner. Not every group is that patient but I can tell you groups are a hell of a lot more patient now than they were 10 years ago because there's just not enough available rads.

To address a prior concern, a first year associate doing 30-40 RVU's a day is in no way generating productivity that merits a $400k, much less $500k salary. And a first year employee doing 30-40 RVU's a day would have the same productivity concerns as a PP workup.
 
sure sure sure, groups just make sure to wait until the day before their partner tract is up before saying anything. totally reasonable
 
Lol my attending was a literal partner in the group and he told me he feels guilty about it to this day. You are trying to dissuade caution in trainees for an obvious self serving reason as a partner in your group, and we can see right through you.
 
LegendaryBibimbap said:
Lol my attending was a literal partner in the group and he told me he feels guilty about it to this day. You are trying to dissuade caution in trainees for an obvious self serving reason as a partner in your group, and we can see right through you.
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Hey man how dare you challenge the moral integrity of rich PP who would never think twice about screwing over new associates.. it’s obviously always the associates who are at fault.. the PP are always super lenient without ulterior motives or maintaining their dinosaur partners bottom lines /s
 
The extreme I have seen is a group with 55-60 wRVU daily average fire a radiologist who could not read 15-20 CTs in a day.
 
GadRads said:
The extreme I have seen is a group with 55-60 wRVU daily average fire a radiologist who could not read 15-20 CTs in a day.
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Yikes, that’s what my residency’s good R1’s would read in their 5 hr buddy call evening shifts. And that’s a high level tertiary level 1 case mix, not the usual community case mix.

That person would be in trouble from the get go in practice, anywhere not just PP.
 
LegendaryBibimbap said:
One of my former PP attendings told me they decided back in the day to not make a guy partner right before the end of their two year tract. Guess when they told him? The day after the poor guy was going around sharing pictures of the brand new house they just bought. 1.9 years in to the job of course 😂
Click to expand...
Did the guy who got screwed over vet the pp before accepting the job and buying a house like seeing how many of the previous associates made partner?
 
sloh said:
Did the guy who got screwed over vet the pp before accepting the job and buying a house like seeing how many of the previous associates made partner?
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That's a good question, and I don't know how much digging he did. My attending told me this story because he believed associates should never buy a house until they make partner either way.
 
It is unwise to to discuss salaries in public. You are inviting a backlash. Practices are fighting hard to hire right now; it is difficult to find good people. Speak with your resident and attending colleagues to find out what pay is like right now.

Groups are fighting each other to retain and hire, so you can do well.

Beware offers of very high salaries… the volume needed can be reckless or the strings attached, significant.

Thoroughly vet any partnership track. Get the phone number of a young grunt radiologist in the group, call them in the evening, ask them what the deal actually is. Take everything the group says with a grain of salt; there is no such thing as an amazing salary for little work.

Private practices love to churn and burn through youngsters using a false promise of partnership, and they are late to recognize the market will no longer tolerate their malignant behaviors.

Personally, I would not take a low salary under the pretense of partnership down the line. The money you give up can make a huge difference if invested early in your career. The market can also change very quickly. If the stock market corrects significantly, it can put an immediate stop to turnover in groups and job openings.

If you are looking now, ask for everything. You may be surprised how much you can get if you just ask when the market is like it is now.
 
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