Imaging interpretation turnaround times more than double over a decade
Imaging interpretation times have more than doubled over the course of a decade, according to new Neiman Health Policy Institute research published Tuesday.
Current workforce shortages in the specialty are being spurred by increasing per-patient demand for imaging, an aging population and the limited supply of radiologists. As hiring challenges persist, there are growing concerns about the impact on patient care, experts write in JACR.
Researchers recently aimed to assess how turnaround times—or the period between when a scan is performed and a radiologist reads the images—have changed in recent years. They found that the length of this window leapt by 113% between 2014 and 2023, with worsening wait times beginning two years after the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The potential negative clinical impact of growing turnaround time for the interpretation of imaging must be closely monitored, especially if the trend worsens,” study co-author Cindy Yuan, MD, with the Indiana University School of Medicine, said in a statement March 13. “We think these results are an early indicator of a worsening problem. If the sudden change in 2022 reflects that there is no remaining capacity for the radiology workforce to absorb new workload, then continued imaging growth will eventually impact patients.”
The study utilized a 5% representative sample of fee-for-service Medicare claims for office- or hospital-based outpatient imaging. It included technical claims covering the image acquisition, along with matched professional claims for the subsequent interpretation. Altogether, the study incorporated nearly 2.6 million imaging studies, which included CT, MR, ultrasound and radiography.
Average time until interpretation was about 2 hours and 37 minutes during the study period. This figure more than doubled over a decade, rising from about 2 hours and 11 minutes in 2014 up to about 4 hours and 37 minutes by 2023. Turnaround times increased across all modalities, with radiography seeing the smallest change (up 63% since 2014), followed by ultrasound (140%), MR (256%) and CT (318%). These trends seemed to vary based on community income and urbanicity, the study found, with more disadvantaged communities experiencing longer turnaround times.
About 19% of the total increase in overall turnaround times occurred in 2022, while 68% happened in 2023. Experts believe these “sudden” upticks signal the specialty is starting to see strain stemming from its staffing challenges.
“These increases likely indicate that the radiology workforce has reached maximum capacity in that it cannot absorb additional workload,” the authors concluded. “Future research should determine if current trends worsen and explore the factors contributing to the recent trends, such as increased ED imaging volume and radiologist shortages and the consequences of delayed imaging reports. The implications of these findings are that, without changes that increase workforce capacity or reduce imaging volume, increases in turnaround times may eventually results in clinically meaningful delays.”
Read more about the results, including potential study limitations, in the Journal of the American College of Radiology.
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.