Radiology

Originally published by Michael Walter on Radiology Business

Medical malpractice claims are a significant source of anxiety for all radiologists. Unfortunately, decisions made in the heat of the moment, with the absolute best intentions, can still land a specialist in court.

In my role as chief medical officer for vRad, I’m intimately involved with our radiology malpractice claims and have observed commonalities among them. To quantify these observations, I recently analyzed all 220 claims made against vRad radiologists between June 2017 and October 2020—applying a detailed classification taxonomy including the alleged type of miss, study type, if the standard of care was met, if communication failures contributed, settlement, and so on.

What emerged from that data was a clear set of guidelines to help radiologists avoid the costliest and most likely cases to go to trial.

I am extremely pleased to announce that beginning in 2022, vRad radiologists will see a compensation increase of up to 25%.

This will be the largest pay hike in the history of our practice and it will benefit all vRad radiologists. As part of a long-term reinvestment strategy in our radiologists, it is the fourth increase since 2019 and it reflects our values in compensating radiologists for the time, effort, and expertise required to advance vRad as a premier practice.

Can you recall the last shift during which you spent close to 100% of your time on clinical duties?

I can. It was my last shift. I had no administrative obligations, no committee meetings, no software glitches, no running around trying to find a physician or tech—just eyes on images and voice into the mic.

Then again, every shift is like that for me. After working in several private practices, I’ve spent the last 11 years doing full-time teleradiology—backed 24/7 by a superb support team of 51 dedicated staff.

Radiologist salaries average $420,000 to $430,000 annually. Last year was an outlier due to COVID, when the collective figure dipped to around $413,000, according to Medscape’s latest physician salary survey.

Whether or not your salary is in line with these figures, now is a great time to take stock and ask yourself the following:

1. Am I happy with the money I’m making as a radiologist?
2. Am I content with the hours I’m putting in to get there?
3. Am I even in control of my earnings and how hard do I have to work?

It’s been two and a half years since I realized the pressures of work had been getting the better of me for too long. I needed to make a change. The prime source of my duress was an unrelenting and constantly expanding radiology worklist.

I’d always loved my work as a radiologist. Getting things right—and fast—for patients and their treating physicians was one of the most satisfying sources of joy in my life. But 15 years into my private practice career with a large, multihospital health system, my worklist was making every day feel simultaneously monotonous and frenetic.