Radiology’s New Way: Reads, Rads, ROI—and RadPod
Interventional radiologist Mairaj Uddin, MD, knew he’d gotten himself into something good when he saw his teammates work through a backlog of 3,000 imaging studies in just three days.
The languishing worklist had piled up over a period of two to four weeks. What finally cut the stack down to size? According to Dr. Uddin, it was a combination of the right radiologists and the right platform.
“As soon as we went live with RadPod, it was like cutting through butter with a warm knife,” he says. “I couldn’t believe we went from 3,000 to zero in less than one workweek, but it really happened.”
RadPod is the physician arm of CIVIE. Its IT architecture is an AI-native, on-demand teleradiology reading platform released in June 2025. RadPod lets member radiologists work independently so they can read diagnostic studies remotely and on their own schedules.
RadPod at a glance
- Parent company: CIVIE
- Designation: CIVIE’s physician arm
- Category: AI-native teleradiology
- Headcount: ~900 radiologists
- Volume: ~8,000 studies per day
- Reach: 5 states—CA, FL, GA, IL, TX—and growing
- Average wRVUs: 14 per radiologist per hour
- Average STAT turnaround: 11 minutes emergency, 40 minutes inpatient, 4 hours outpatient
- Average routine turnaround: 4 hours inpatient, 18 hours outpatient
- Concordance rate: 98.2%
- Website: radpod.com
Dr. Uddin is an Indiana-based interventional radiologist who contributes 30% of his time to diagnostic reads from home. His team is a radiologist squad that, united by RadPod, covers nine Prime Healthcare hospitals in Illinois and Indiana. His main hospitals for IR procedures are St. Francis in Evanston and St. Joseph in Mishawaka.
Dr. Uddin’s experience with the RadPod model is telling since he had no hand in selecting it. “I’m just one of the troops,” he recently told Radiology Business, “a rank-and-file radiologist.”
A health system ready for ‘something new’
Prior to onboarding with RadPod, Dr. Uddin worked for Precision Radiology, a private practice contracted to cover some of those nine hospitals. When hospital consolidation came around—St. Joseph was acquired by Ascension Health, which in turn was acquired by Prime Healthcare in 2025—Dr. Uddin found himself at a crossroads.
“Prime chose to try something new rather than renew the existing contract,” Dr. Uddin recalls, “and that something new turned out to be RadPod.”
He now considers the ownership shuffle a happy accident in his career.
“RadPod uses cutting-edge AI,” Dr. Uddin explains. “I don’t know anything about AI except what you see in the news. But I can tell you that RadPod’s AI is largely invisible to the radiologist yet helps me work smarter rather than harder.”
He’s a fan of RadPod’s facilitation of anywhere/anytime remote reads for diagnostic cases. He also likes the platform’s interface, which features a dashboard showing the radiologist’s compensation in real time—not unlike a taxi driver’s meter. For Dr. Uddin, this touch represents a glimpse of radiology’s future.
“The radiologist keeps 100% of what they earn through RadPod,” he says, clarifying that interventional radiologists are paid a flat daily rate for procedures and can be compensated for diagnostic studies on a per-wRVU basis.
“There are no middlemen and no hidden fees,” Dr. Uddin adds. “Who wouldn’t like that?”
AI at the epicenter
Other features Dr. Uddin has grown to love even without knowing “what’s going on under the hood” include RadPod’s use of AI-powered PACS, voice recognition, instant payments, customizable worklists, case prioritization, web-based access and automated quality assurance.
“I think it’s a plus that I don’t know how AI makes it all work,” Dr. Uddin says. “I’m a working physician, not a computer engineer.”
In a separate interview, CIVIE/RadPod CEO Dhruv Chopra told Radiology Business that envisioning RadPod—which already 900 radiologist RadPodders—was a “no-brainer” in the months and years leading up to June 2025.
“During and after the COVID pandemic, anyone could see that many if not most radiologists love the ability to read from home, get paid on time and get paid based on productivity,” Chopra says. “Just like that, the conventional way of practicing radiology—including teleradiology—seemed old and in the way.”
Once radiological AI matured with large language models, he adds, it was just as easy to turn the idea into an offering.
“Bringing this technology to life was like living a dream come true for me,” Chopra reveals. “I genuinely believe RadPod will bring about one of the biggest transformations ever to hit the radiology space.”
Radiologist shortage: Technology can help
Although he wasn’t part of the team that brought in RadPod, Dr. Uddin knows well the pain points—and the opportunities—that preceded the move.
“One big challenge was reading studies quickly and matching the right subspecialist to each case,” he says. “And all of this came during a very serious shortage of radiologists.”
Given the scarcity of available human talent, especially in the subspecialist pool, Dr. Uddin observes, recruiting and retaining radiologists has become aggressively competitive.
“Here we have only six IR physicians covering nine hospitals,” he shares. “Full daily coverage at all nine is impossible. RadPod helps us intelligently stagger schedules, taking individual preferences into account, communicating clearly and making sure no IR procedure waits to get done.”
A relief valve writ large
Dr. Uddin adds that this platform was precisely the feature that helped the team complete those 3,000 reads in three days.
“Before RadPod, I often started reading diagnostic studies at 6 a.m. before driving to the hospital to do procedures,” he says. “When those were done for the day, I went back to the diagnostic work. Some days the workday never seemed to end.”
And now?
“The pressure is much lighter,” Dr. Uddin replies, noting that RadPod uses AI to distribute diagnostic studies according to case urgency, subspecialist availability and other factors.
“It would take a human gatekeeper much longer to do what the technology does in just a few seconds,” he says.
5 takeaway takes
Dr. Uddin had more to say about his life before and after practicing AI-native teleradiology with RadPod. Among his noteworthy insights:
- “At first the system felt novel. I’m a patient-centered interventional physician, not especially tech-savvy. AI is embedded throughout the RadPod platform. It even handles billing, scheduling and other administrative tasks—really everything—so I can stay fully focused on reading studies.”
- “I didn’t know I needed something like RadPod until I started using it. I was a very conventional radiologist—and still am, in some ways. I still carry a pager even though I don’t really need to. It’s just a hard habit to break. The RadPod phone app makes my pager extraneous. It keeps me updated on urgent needs and worklist status. It even lets me take a preliminary peek at studies so I can begin consulting with referrers while away from my workstation.”
- “RadPod gives the radiologist unbiased feedback. In my case, it routes stroke exams to me because I’m strong at them. It also highlights my areas that have room for improvement. It’s like having a mirror of my performance, letting me see very clearly how I’m doing.”
- “It now strikes me that fears of AI dehumanizing radiology are unfounded. For one thing, despite all its super-advanced technologies, RadPod gives you human support most every time you need any support at all. An AI agent has connected me with a human more than 90% of the time I’ve hit any kind of snag or wanted any sort of customization. In a way, RadPod’s AI-powered human touch inspires me to follow suit for my patients and referrers.”
Dr. Uddin closes on a personal note.
“My dad used to say I could have changed the world if only I had gone into information technology,” he says. “He still likes to remind me it’s not too late to head to Silicon Valley.”
He pauses for just a moment.
“Now I can tell him I work on the leading edge of technology that is changing a world—the world of radiology—while still doing patient care, which I remain passionate about. ‘That is not nothing, Dad!’”
--
To learn more about RadPod from the source, click here.
To read prior coverage of CIVIE/RadPod from Radiology Business, click here.
Dave P. has worked in journalism, marketing and public relations for more than 30 years, frequently concentrating on hospitals, healthcare technology and Catholic communications. He has also specialized in fundraising communications, ghostwriting for CEOs of local, national and global charities, nonprofits and foundations.