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Radiologist Salary Reckoning: Who Has Control Over Your Compensation?

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?

10 Steps to a Stress-Free Mammography Inspection

Whoever said the only things certain in life are death and taxes never faced an MQSA inspection. Federally mandated in the early ’90s and delegated to the states ever since, the process can seem like a frenetic exercise in reprimand avoidance. However, with a little rethinking and some focused preparation, you can turn the stressful day into an enjoyable experience.

In fact, watch out. You might even come to see your pre-inspection checklisting as a rewarding labor of love. After all, the beneficiaries of your dutiful i-dotting and t-crossing are deserving mammography patients.

It is with them in mind that I offer some principles and pointers I’ve come back to time and again over the 30-plus years I’ve worked in mammography technology, operations and administration. This includes the last seven years helping vRad’s telemammography clients prepare for their inspections.

How I Eliminated Worklist Pressure and Burnout from My Radiology Career

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.

Rad Results: The mobile app that connects radiologists with the patient care team

Originally published by Michael Walter on Radiology Business

In radiology, it is vital for radiologists to connect with the entire patient care team in a seamless and timely manner.

Imaging providers have done this over the years through such tools as land lines, pagers, fax machines and integrating with the electronic medical record (EMR). Some radiology practices even have their own secure client portal for this very purpose.

But times are changing. Communication among healthcare providers is more complicated now than ever. Radiologists are working on a broader array of technology platforms from diverse locations, including from home. Care teams are getting larger with an increasing need for near real-time communication. The old ways of delivering radiology results are imperfect for this new era of modern medicine. One dropped connection or wrong number can cause wasteful delays and even harmful outcomes.

Finding a Mentor—or Becoming One—Can Make All the Difference in Your Career (and Your Life)

At some point in your career, if you are lucky, you find somebody approachable who’s blazed trails and navigated difficulties in ways you can model. I can speak to this because I was fortunate enough to meet a humble high achiever who not only inspires me but also took an interest in helping me along. Her guidance has made all the difference to me—personally as well as professionally.

6 Things Every Radiologist Should Know About CME

There’s no shortage of options for radiologists pursuing CME credits. In fact we sometimes find ourselves facing “overchoice,” a condition correctly predicted in 1970 by the late futurist Alvin Toffler. The phenomenon can cause us to browse, stall and procrastinate—only to make an impulse purchase just to get it over with.

Radiology programs leave locums behind, embrace a better staffing solution

Originally published by Michael Walter on Radiology Business

Imaging providers are continuously filling holes in their radiologist coverage schedule. Maybe the only neuroradiologist is out sick, for example, or two-thirds of the staff all want to attend the same conference.

This is typically when groups turn to locum tenens, but the high cost, time-consuming logistics, and unpredictable performance can be a thorn in the side for imaging leaders wanting to deliver high-quality patient care in a streamlined and efficient manner.

Physician Retention: Keeping Your Best and Brightest Radiologists

More than 41% of radiologists separated from at least one practice over a recent four-year period, according to the Journal of the American College of Radiology, underscoring the specialty’s increasingly mobile nature.

Medical facilities bear the brunt of the costs associated with this transiency. Competition for a finite pool of qualified physicians is contributing to salary increases, with the average annual salary for radiologists exceeding $400,000 for the first time in 2019, up 3.6% over the previous year.

But salary growth is only a part of the burden for administrators. When a radiologist leaves, there’s the expense of recruiting and hiring a replacement; until the vacancy is filled, remaining staff must shoulder the stress of additional workload, including managing and training an interim locum tenens or a new hire. Any time a physician departs, there’s potential disruption for patients under their care.

A post-COVID radiologist job market, and what you should know

 

The 2021 radiologist job market finds radiologists at the mercy of those who would hire them. The imbalance has a lot to do with a certain public health crisis, so it may prove temporary. Regardless, radiologists seeking a new challenge would be shrewd to slow down their job search at least long enough to survey the situation.

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