What is the future of IR?

[aslkfdj]

Where are things heading work, innovation, and compensation/reimbursement-wise? What are the chances that IRs will finally start opening their own clinics to solve the patient referral problem?

I know there's an IR subforum, but it doesn't look all that active.

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[Tenk]

I’m not IR but I send them a lot of work (ED). I can tell you their work load is going up and I doubt they are going to start moving out of the hospital setting. They do too many procedures that all require different pieces of very expensive equipment so the overhead of a private clinic would be unfathomable.

 

[aslkfdj]

Interesting -- if workload keeps going up, do you anticipate 100% IR jobs becoming more common in the future?

 

[Dr G Oogle]

Interesting -- if workload keeps going up, do you anticipate 100% IR jobs becoming more common in the future?

They are already pretty common, but it may be to someone’s benefit to also maintain DR skills, IR is grueling both physically and time wise, bad call schedules time away from family etc, most people don’t want that for 30+ years, no matter how cool the procedures are, and even the most gung ho IR recognizes the value in maintaining their general skills.

 

[Miles Gloriosus]

Where are things heading work, innovation, and compensation/reimbursement-wise? What are the chances that IRs will finally start opening their own clinics to solve the patient referral problem?

I know there's an IR subforum, but it doesn't look all that active.

Please elaborate.
I don’t think they’re gonna start getting patients off the street. Would still need referral from someone.

Contrary to popular belief on SDN, “opening your own shop” or “hanging your own shingle” will not magically get patients flocking to your practice.

 

[guytakingboards]

Interesting -- if workload keeps going up, do you anticipate 100% IR jobs becoming more common in the future?

Maybe a little bit but I wouldn't expect the market to change too much.

The workload going up is all the garbage small procedures that other specialties have dumped and that pay poorly. If you did 100% of that stuff you wouldn't be making very much.

The niche OBL based practices doing the lucrative stuff like veins, UFE's, prostates, etc... is a) expensive to build up and b) takes years of hustling to develop the referral patterns. Plus as IRwarrior has mentioned in the IR subforum, you gotta be able to run a clinic and medically manage a lot of conditions. Getting referrals and doing medical management is not something most IRs are (well) trained at.