Radiologists call for innovative funding strategies to boost specialty’s workforce
Radiologists are calling for innovative new funding strategies to help boost the specialty’s workforce and address “worsening” staffing shortages.
Physicians made their plea in an editorial published as part of the February issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology. The special edition is focused on the “Economics of Education,” meant to spark “dialogue around how radiology education is valued, supported and delivered.”
In the editorial, Akongnwi Jungong Cheo, MD, and colleagues note how radiology education is facing “complex economic challenges.” Rising imaging case volumes are contributing to burnout, but training programs are expanding at an insufficient rate to keep up with demand.
That’s because of decades-old caps on training positions in the Medicare program, among other hindrances.
“As training costs continue to rise and federal funding remains constrained, academic institutions must explore innovative and sustainable approaches to support and expand resident education,” Jungong Cheo and co-authors noted. “Balancing financial realities with the need to increase the number of radiology graduates is critical for the future of radiology.”
Federal GME funding caps imposed in 1997 remain a “major bottleneck” preventing an expansion of the radiology workforce. This limits the number of residency positions, despite sustained applicant interest and workforce demand. It’s still to be seen how the One Big Beautiful Bill, passed by Congress last year, will further constrain programs. GME per-resident reimbursement is “intricately linked” to federal healthcare dollars, the authors added.
The number of graduating radiologists has lagged current demands, with one analysis of ACR Career Center data conducted in 2023 discovering a 48% increase in new job listings over a 2-year period. As of last April, there were 1,944 unfiled radiology jobs listed on the college’s website. The writers offered six potential strategies to address radiologist staffing shortage and build the workforce:
- Create new residency programs: Encourage hospitals without radiology training programs to create new ones. Despite a strong interest in radiology among medical students, residency positions remain stagnant.
- Expand existing programs: Learn from programs that have successfully expanded beyond Medicare caps. Use alternative funding sources like private groups, radiology equipment vendors and philanthropy.
- Private collaboration: Form partnerships with private radiology practices to sponsor new training positions.
- Vendor partnerships: Negotiate with equipment manufacturers to sponsor residency positions.
- Philanthropy campaigns: Launch targeted donation drives from alumni businesses and health philanthropists.
- Data-driven advocacy: Collect data on how adequate radiologists staffing improves operations (e.g., turnaround time, ER wait times). Such data will be invaluable for radiology expansion advocacy.
- Accelerated pathways: Reduce training length by integrating fellowship during residency. Reevaluate the need for an intern year.
Other articles in the new JACR issue explore topics such as alternative educational approaches, trends in diagnostic radiology applications and match rates, educational debt among U.S. medical grads entering imaging, and the business case for investing in radiology education. Editors of the issue said they wanted to explore how education and economics intersect in imaging.
“Across practice settings, educators and clinical leaders alike are pulled between maximizing productivity and dedicating time, funding and institutional resources to resident education,” guest editor Fatima Elahi, DO, MHA, with Henry Ford Health in Detroit, said in a Feb. 4 announcement from ACR about the new JACR issue. “There was an opportunity to explore the economic realities underlying radiology education and the innovative, practical solutions to these challenges.”
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.