The radiologist shortage is real but smaller and more local than believed: Report
The radiologist shortage is real, but it may be smaller and more local than previous reports might indicate, according to new research.
About 47% of “open” radiologist jobs are reposts of the same role. However, the “real shortage” appears to be “concentrated and stubborn,” according to an analysis shared by RadBoard, an artificial intelligence-powered platform for researching jobs in the specialty.
Approximately 1,470 of active radiologist openings have been sitting unfilled for over two months or more.
“Most aren't underpaid—they're geographically inconvenient,” writes report author Kirill Lopatin, founder and CEO of xAID, which offers AI solutions to radiology groups.
The analysis covered a 78-day tracking window spanning March 9 to May 26 of this year. It aggregated 20,775 postings from numerous sources including job boards maintained by the American College of Radiology and Radiological Society of North America. Of those included, 13,306 postings already had closed in the 78-day window (for a 64% churn rate). This means there were about 7,469 currently active U.S. radiology openings as of late May. Median job postings have a lifespan of approximately 19.8 days before closing, and 19.7% of active jobs were classified as “stuck,” staying open for 60 or more days.
“One in four radiology jobs vanishes in under a week—filled fast, pulled, or revealed as a duplicate. But 30%+ stay open longer than a month. The market doesn't have a single ‘fill rate’—it has two markets layered on top of each other,” Lopatin wrote.
About half of currently active jobs (3,713) have been open for over 30 days, and about 1 in 5 (or 1,470) have been sitting unfilled past 60 days. Lopatin noted that certain states are particularly struggling with such “stuck” jobs. Nebraska leads the list with 36 rad roles open for over two months, representing nearly 68% of active listings. Minnesota (41%), Washington (35%), Georgia (29%) and Wisconsin (29%) round out the top 5.
About 26% (or 105/410) of jobs are classified as stuck in low-population areas, with fewer than 2 million residents, the analysis found. That’s compared to about 18% in high-population states with more than 6 million residents.
“The lowest-population states show stuck-rates 40% higher than the highest-population states. The shortage isn't national—it's concentrated in places radiologists won't move to,” Lopatin noted.
Jobs in such stuck states also appear to pay less. For instance, the median salary across the top eight states in this category was $550,000. That’s compared to $725,000 in “fast-cycling states,” including Florida, Texas, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Indiana.
“In most states, money is the lever—stuck jobs pay less; raising offers would likely move the needle,” Lopatin wrote. “But in Texas and Minnesota the inverse holds: Stuck positions pay MORE than fast-filling ones. The constraint there isn't compensation—it's lifestyle, on-call burden, location, or workflow.”
Read more about the findings, including which employers are having the most success filling positions, here.
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.