What sort of paperwork, administrative, insurance-related headaches are there in radiology?

[odyssey2]

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Is there much non-medicine related BS you put up with in radiology? Or is it pretty much go in, read the scans, write the reports, and you’re good to go?

 

[guytakingboards]

Not much if any insurance related issues falls on the rads. The ancillary staff takes care of any insurance pre-approvals and it's really up to the clinician to justify a study, not the radiologist.

There's some but not a ton of non-RVU generating things in radiology, but nothing as bad as the clinical specialties. In a given day I might field a couple of phone calls from tech's that want to double check the right study (aka protocol) is scheduled for a patient coming in or to double check images on a study currently being scanned. I get a handful of calls from clinicians to go over prior studies. At imaging centers, we occasionally have patients getting sedation that need to be talked to prior to the procedure.

I'm just a grunt in a big group; i have very little admin responsibilities. That'll differ depending on size and setting of the group.

The occasional multi-disciplinary conference is the longest, semi-regular thing that keeps me off the list.

The overwhelming majority of most days i'm just reading cases and doing an occasional procedure.

 

[Dave1980]

Is there much non-medicine related BS you put up with in radiology? Or is it pretty much go in, read the scans, write the reports, and you’re good to go?

Not too much but depends on the practice and PP vs academic divide. Some of the annoying things you will encounter specific to Radiology:

1) Clinicians asking for an addendum because they now provided you with a prior exam that really should have been provided to begin with. Basically asking you to reread a scan. Most times these are on complicated exams.
2) Deciding if contrast can and should be given in patients with poor renal function.
3) Deciding with protocol to use when the order is ambiguous.
4) THE WORST is tracking down clinicians to give them either an urgent report or report something you think might fall through the cracks if you don't directly bring it to their attention. This can sometimes take a very, very long time and especially after hours is really annoying.

 

[Rad2013]

Agree with the above post.

Regarding point 4… larger groups should have support staff, likely 24/7 if large enough, that facilitate communication to ordering providers to remove the frustration and time drain of trying to reach people to communicate results.

 

[RadX]

Agree with the above posts. Unless, you are doing IR, anything patient related can be deferred to the referring physician (any missing labs/orders,..).

 

[Dave1980]

Agree with the above post.

Regarding point 4… larger groups should have support staff, likely 24/7 if large enough, that facilitate communication to ordering providers to remove the frustration and time drain of trying to reach people to communicate results.

In academics the residents and fellows do this. In my experience as a non academic attending this falls on your to make the call.

 

[Rad2013]

Some academic institutions may have reading room assistants. They were starting to have this where I trained when I was in my last year of residency and fellowship. Wasn’t quite as efficient as the system I now use in PP, but was better than having to make all calls solo.