WARNING: If you are a radiologist, married to a radiologist, related to a radiologist, or even remotely like radiologists, you will be offended by this article. Be forewarned.
How absentee radiologists can suck the financial blood from an EP’s work
WARNING: If you are a radiologist, married to a radiologist, related to a radiologist, or even remotely like radiologists, you will be offended by this article. Be forewarned.
I attended the Gorgas’ School of Tropical Medicine in Lima, Peru. We were treated to a wealth of clinical material including all types of worms, amoeba, malaria, fungal infections and more blood-sucking, vector-driven infectious diseases than you can shake a stick at. Subsequently, I have been asked many times “What is the most horrific parasite you have ever seen?” Those asking the question always expect to hear about some invasive, caseating, nasty infection with terrible suffering and awful consequences. However, I always respond that the worst parasite I have ever seen is a radiologist arriving at the hospital Monday morning in a black German-made luxury car (think vector here).
Upon entry to the hospital these parasites will commence to feed on the financial juices of the lowly unfortunate EPs, who had to work the entire weekend without radiologic support or back up, particularly for the plain films they ordered. The radiologist arrives well rested, café latte in hand, and promptly installs himself in a dark room to re-read and bill for all the films the EPs read over the weekend. These same radiologists that are getting wealthy from re-reading films on ED patients long since discharged home do not understand why we do not welcome their belated input.
With regards to radiology, never has a specialty done so little for so many and been paid so much. Added to each read is “Recommend clinical correlation” or perhaps a self-referral like “MRI recommended” to clarify the pathology which we have already dealt with, contributing nothing to the outcome but cost.
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As Greg Henry MD, past-president of ACEP, has pointed out when discussing medical economics, the pie isn’t going to get bigger. The only question is “How big is your slice?” If you feel you deserve more of the pie, then someone else will consequently get less. Our slice should be bigger, and the fraudulent radiology slice can get smaller. |
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The bills submitted for non-contemporaneous readings by radiologists are an enormous fraud occurring across the country at almost every hospital on most mornings, especially Mondays. Why does “the system” tolerate it? Where is CMS – or any of the other regulatory behemoths such as the Joint Commission, who are supposedly concerned with waste, fraud and abuse? Nationwide, the billings for these non-contemporaneous to care readings is millions of dollars a year.
In California it is estimated that each EP provides approximately $150,000 per year of uncompensated care as part of our EMTALA obligation. I am proud of the fact that we provide this safety net. However, as third party payers continue to down code and bundle our services, and balance billing comes under prohibition state by state, I want to be paid for these interpretive services which I render without radiologic support. I will be the one sued for missing the fracture, why shouldn’t I be paid for reading the film?
How much are these plain film interpretive services worth? In a study of a single hospital in Southern California with a modest payer mix, the plain film interpretive services worked out to $19 per EM clinical hour worked. This number comes from actual reimbursement data at a hospital where the radiologists are appropriately forbidden from billing for non-contemporaneous plain film readings.
If you multiply that hourly rate for 140 clinical hours per month, it is $1660 or about $19,000 per year for every full time EP at the site. Obviously, this EP group had to have the unmitigated gall to claim this income as well as the political power to stop the radiologists from submitting bills for those plain films which they were not reading contemporaneously. For many of you reading this, that battle might threaten your contract or result in other serious problems within your hospital, so you have decided to let sleeping dogs lie (or using the parasite analogy, you have left the feeding tick undisturbed). I would suggest that becoming a “whistle blower” would be appropriate here.
In December of 2009 CMS again made it clear that contemporaneous service matters.
Billers of diagnostic and interpretive studies are required to use only the date when the interpretation was performed as their service date and not the date the film was taken. The instruction from the Medicare Carrier Manual is as follows:
10.6.3 – Date of Service (DOS) Instructions for the Interpretation and Technical Component of Diagnostic Tests (Rev. 1873, Issued: 12-11-09, Effective: 01-04-10, Implementation: 07-01-10)
The appropriate DOS for the professional component is the actual calendar date that the interpretation was performed. For example, if the test or technical component was performed on April 30th and the interpretation was read on May 2nd, the actual calendar date or DOS for the performance of the test is April 30th and the actual calendar date or DOS for the interpretation or read of the test is May 2nd.
The practical argument from radiologists has always been that, if the emergency physician (EP) bills, the radiologist’s claim will be rejected. Radiology billers have demanded the right to report the film date so that their bill matches the hospital’s bill. But now, there is no doubt about the correct date of service – the date the interpretation was made.
As a result of this instruction, what we have claimed to be true for a long time is now clear. It is effectively a fraudulent claim if a physician falsifies the date of service in order to effect payment. You might even begin to see the black Porsche in the parking lot on Saturday mornings as the radiologists begin to claim that they were right by your side at 3 am on Saturday night after you got that post-intubation chest X-ray on the intoxicated motor vehicle accident victim with a head bleed.
As Greg Henry MD, past-president of ACEP, has pointed out when discussing medical economics, the pie isn’t going to get bigger. The only question is “How big is your slice?” If you feel you deserve more of the pie, then someone else will consequently get less. Our slice should be bigger, and the fraudulent radiology slice can get smaller. If this is bitter sounding to radiologists then the pie can be key lime pie with lemon zest on top. Either that or they can begin to learn what being at the hospital feels like on nights, weekends, and holidays. I am tired of supporting their relaxed lifestyle and making car payments on their Porsches. We all know they will not adopt our lifestyle, so they need to give up the dollars and eat less pie.
At academic centers with radiology residents, the fraudulent behavior is on multiple levels. The radiology attending
supposedly supervising residents at night are often not doing so. Therefore, the bill submitted by the radiology attending for the reading of a film days after ED discharge is fraudulent to the third party payor as well as to the university. Furthermore, they are educating young radiologists regarding the responsibility and ethics of their specialty. What they are teaching them is that the radiologists’ clinical contribution and interpretive services should never get in the way of their radiology lifestyle. Sure the radiology resident can stay up all night, but not the attending.
It is time to break the vicious radiology parasitic life cycle. This cycle has a vector (Porsche or any black German car), an incidental host (the ED), a nest egg component (pick the gated community where they live or the vacation home they have in Aspen), and a feeding stage (sequestered in the darkness of a reading room). So spread some albendazole around the reading room and stop this epidemic. Blow your whistle loudly. Get paid for interpreting the films you read last Saturday night. It’s so easy in fact that you’re already doing it! It will feel really good to get paid for it.
You deserve it.
Dr. William Mallon is an associate professor of clinical emergency medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. He is also the director of the Division of International Emergency Medicine, LAC+USC Med Center.
234 Comments
You should look a little closer into the economics of medicine and the level of training required to be a radiologist vs an emergency medicine doctor. I fear you must have grotesquely misread so many studies that you have developed a sore spot. You might also try carrying a pager when you are not “on-shift” and working at least 5 days a week. When a radiologist gets 10-15 pages a night from EM docs, they must still show up the next morning to do a full days worth of work in an environment where reading more does not reimburse more, but continues to increase the risk of missed diagnosis. Maybe, every single patient in the hospital doesn’t need a CT. Maybe, the cost of medicine is rising because EM docs are reluctant, or unable, to diagnose without a radiology final read.
This is a gross generalization. We don’t all drive black German cars, mine is blue.
If they have to hire guys like this.
You’re correct that this is highly offensive. I could complain how ER docs work 40 hours a week or less, yet seem to believe that other physicians should to work 100 hours a week.
I’m disappointed ‘Emergency Physicians Monthly’ would publish this uncollegial and unprofessional garbage – this reflects poorly on your publication, not only on this the mellonhead who wrote this crap.
William Mallon is a disgrace to himself, the Emergency Department and medicine as a whole. He does supreme diservice to his colleagues who strive for a collegial atmosphere in a difficult hospital. I am fortunate to know that not all the ED share his negative, insulting, self-propagating opinions.
Pathetic. No other word for it. For starters, very few groups operate the way you describe. Much like every other physician in the US, radiology reimbursements have plummeted over the last few years. Part of the problem is, and has been for a while, the large volume of nonreimbursed ER studies. I suppose it would be easy to read XR’s as an ER doc – don’t know what you’re looking at? Just order a CT! In fact, it’s probably already been ordered by the triage nurse, since the clinical acumen of ER docs is approximately zero. Your specialty is a fraud. Really, all we need is a respiratory therapist to intubate, and a nurse to order test, and we’re all set.
way to throw around the 3am card. That’s rich, coming from the original shift-work doctors. We take 24 hour call, then work a full day the next day.
You want the revenue for billing ER plain films? You can have it. Enjoy getting sued for all those missed lung cancers you miss routinely, on a bunch of Xrays you’re reading for free. If you have any questions, feel free to call one of your partners. Just don’t call me. Ever.
I can’t tell. Is this article serious?
It sounds like it should be on The Onion.
Well, someone did the wrong residency. (They still accept applicants). I and my group are in hospital 24-7-365, and read every case within 15 minutes. Now, there are some issues I have with the way that some ER docs cover their work, but I will abstain. It is very very easy to criticize.
If you really think that you can equal the efforts of a physician who now spends a minimum of 5 years learning radiology by anecdotal experience while doing your work, well, then I just don’t know what to say. The surgeons and Internists in our institution are more strident than we are in opposition to the ER doctors reading films as the final interpretation.
That said, medicine seems to be going the way of less expertise in the interest of pushing patients through, and your ideas may have a place in a future that is based on McDonald’s medicine.
WOW. I guess that fancy Peruvian education didn’t get into the “stick to what you know” portion of medicine, and one of the many things ER docs don’t know is imaging. Plain film interpretation is fine, particularly if it’s a relatively healthy patient; however even as a resident I have seen so many missed neoplasms by ER docs, that I tell all my friends and family, that if they go to an ER and get a film, they need to insist a radiologist has looked at it.
The push by ACEP to do US is even worse, you hate that radiologists bill for imaging which has already been acted upon? What about if it’s been misinterpreted and the wrong management paradigm has been initiated, not an infrequent occurence, I did my intern year at an institution where ER do some of their own US, and many times have missed critical findings or did not perform the scan, which had to be repeated by radiology. Now ER already billed for this study, so the radiologist would have to eat cost.
The measely 3 years of training of ER residency barely prepares you for management of ER patients, let alone allows you to compete on an even footing with a radiologist with 5+ years of training in just imaging.
No one is forcing you to order imaging studies which are “contributing nothing to the outcome but cost.” If you know it’s not going to contribute, don’t order it!
Also, some clinical history would be nice from the ER for a change. Most of the studies I read from the ER are performed before anyone even sees the patient.
If you would like to take responsibility for interpreting the films, signing a final report (which would include comparison to priors etc) and collecting the revenue, then please do so. Just don’t expect a radiologist to come in behind to you do the job right.
Yes, I did find this article highly offensive and unprofessional. Since Dr. Mallon seems to be a master at making over-generalizations let me make a few of my own. Dr. Mallon has obviously forgotten the point of working in an understaffed and underfunded hospital, which is to place a greater level of responsibility on the residents so they can leave as highly competent and marketable physicians. Part of his job includes teaching professionalism and he has shown none of that with this article.
In my opinion, someone who harbors such animosity towards his fellow physicians has no place in any teaching hospital. He should seriously consider seeking employment in the private sector where he can find a job that includes a level of radiologist coverage to his liking.
Dr William Mallon interest is in flashy cars and this is understandable in LA, what do you drive Dr Mallon?
On the personal side as a radiologists I drive an 07 Honda Civic, often stay late, do a weekend shift and we cover the hospital 24/7. At LAC-USC you have support from upper level resident/fellows throughout weekend and night with faculty backup right? So what is your point? I second opinions that most clinicians do no want to assume responsability of reading plain films because of liability and because they are prudent and know how easy is to miss that cancer, fracture or significant surgical finding. We have a collegial relation with most ER physicians and this article is a gross distortion on radiology work.
As an academic radiologist, I find a good working relationship with my ER physicians vital. It provides me excellent teaching opportunities and a chance to get real “clinical correllation”. It is the only way to provide concise care in a crazy, large, acute setting. About the only thing I will not tolerate in my reading room is an unhelpful attitude toward referring clinicians including timeliness of interpretation. I am sorry you find your work environment so poor, consider working on relationships instead of throwing rocks, things might improve. I think your patients must suffer far worse than you.
And yea, my job is awesome. I hope you consider yours awesome too.
Dr. Mallon displays an unbelievable display of being unprofessional. I do think the radiology community should refrain from trying to throw sticks and stones at Emergency Physicians as many above posted how relations are on average very good. Any respectable ER doc (or any professional) can easily see this person crossed the line and he should be reprimanded and possibly fired.
By the way, studies show that radiology [b]residents[/b] are more accurate interpreting plain films when compared to ER attendings – for what that is worth. I am sure the USC rad residents/fellows have saved him multiple times but that would never come to light, would it?
The triage function of a hospital has always been performed by an attending physician. However, the attending performing that function has changed from the emergency department to the radioogy department, requiring 24 hour radiology attending coverage at most level one trauma centers around the country. The good news is that EP’s won’t be labelled as glorified triage nurses any longer. The bad news is that after putting in three hard years of partying (residency), you might not have a label.
As an ER doc I can see both side of the argument, however, this article is certainly on the non-collegial side.
Aren’t we all on the same team?
A rant against perceived lifestyle differences…. OK
A snarky tone comparing your colleagues to parasites…. fine
Describing follow-up recomendations as “self-referral”.. ill-informed, but I get it.
BUT…Allegations of fraud? Those are serious accusations, Dr. Mallon. Were you on staff at my institutions I would already have this reported to the chief of staff.
These are the kind of comments that destroy interdepartmental relations and can wreak havoc for years. I hope they pull you out of practice there ASAP.
Patients are ultimately the ones who suffer from this undue animosity. Shame on Dr. Mallon for writing this about his colleagues and shame on EPM for publishing it. In the words of someone I know who has years of experience working with him, “Dr. Mallon has a long and consistent history of being obnoxious!”
u mad? u mad!
Dr. Mallon of Gorgas’ School of Tropical Medicine in Lima, Peru, your ignorance is embarrassing.
Our medical group serves twelve ED contracts. Some of them have peerless radiology coverage- some could use improvement. But in no case is the service what Dr. Mallon claims to have seen. His article is an embarrassment to decency and professional behavior.
More to the point, those deciding the overall size of the pie that Dr. Henry has spoken of are laughing in their sleeves at Dr. Mallon’s outstanding example of divisiveness and inter-specialty sniping. I don’t know anyone in medicine who doesn’t work quite hard indeed- any medical specialty that doesn’t cater to diseases of the rich is no walk in the park these days. Radiologists work hard and make what the market will allow- if you have a problem with that, complain to those who regulate the market. That would certainly not be the radiologists.
Most radiologists who read for EDs and EPs are in small groups who serve at the pleasure of the hospital administrators. They worry, as do we, about their group getting thrown out, about being asked to do more with less, about the risks of litigation etc- all the same things we worry about. In short, they are more like us than unlike us. That being the case, Dr. Mallon’s polemic is especially wrong and notable only for its cruelty and inaccuracy. Congratulations to EP Monthly for giving him a platform. Now- how about the apology to all of us and our radiology colleagues?
MY GOODNESS GRACIOUS! The number of wadded panties here is TNTC! I find it ironic that so many of our good radiologist brethren (and sisteren) are claiming superiority of training over ER docs. Then the same folks turn around and claim, straight faced, that they can do nuclear medicine as well as any board-certified nuke! In radiology training, you get six-months of nukes training (assuming the program director is honest). You can then go out into the world and shut out virtually every residency-trained board certified nuke who isn’t also a radiologist! The hypocrisy here is breathtaking!
Obviously, this made more than a few radioligists angry. Some of the responses show a level of immaturity. Truth be, I rarely need their help and I never wait for it. Of course, they read the films, plain, CT, MRI, US long after I already have. I never wait for them. Often, the virtual radiologist calls the ER and demands that I come to the phone so that they can dictate that they have told me about the abnormality. By that time the patient is already on the way to the OR by my reading….
Kind of silly, isn’t it?
As one who practiced Emergency Medicine for 12 years in high volume ED’s, managing one or two, and acting as Operational Medical Director for a few ambulance services in Virginia back in the early 2000’s, I left a successful practice and returned and did a second residency. My second residency was in Diagnostic radiology. Sir, if you are so miserable, I suggest you do the same. Many reasons I left, but one which has not changed was the decreasing quality of physicians I was forced to work with. If you know a study will be negative, grow some nuts and don’t order it. Believe it or not, you can actually make accurate AND timely diagnosis largely based on history and physical exam. That is if you get off your ass and see the patient. Increasingly few people do that. Basic knowledge of disease processes posessed by ED people is decreasing rapidly. Frankly, it is true that well trained FNP can do as good a job calling the specialists. I used to work in an ED that would not let the ED doc order certain tests. They were reserved for the specialists to order. I now know why. It is still not too late for you to go back and find out, if you have not burned all of your bridges.
Who knew so many radiologists read Emergency Physician’s Monthly? If only they would spend some of that time reading contemporaneous plain films……
I may not agree with, but I understand that everyone will have differing points of view.
However, this is disgusting, and grossly inaccurate. I cannot even begin to delve into the grossly distorted view this gentleman has of radiology work, as I do not want to ruin my Thursday night.
At our very large, academic institution, we have a fantastic relationship with the ER attendings. And from what I know of the author’s institution, the radiologists as well have a fantastic relationship with the ED department (save for Dr. Mallon). We respect their expertise (heck, several of us have gone to them for acute, personal health problems) and their respect our expertise.
I have quite sure that this bad apple will be dealt with quite quickly, and I certainly decisively. This shows extremely poor judgement on the part of Dr. Mallon.
This also shows extremely poor judgement of the publishers of this journal – shame on you! I have half of a mind to lodge a formal compliant with your publisher or supporting society.
AMEN! FINALLY someone speaks the truth about this speciality of fraud! Solution : Flood the CMS auditors with evidence. Document every case non contemporaneous interpretations.
Write to your reps. in DC
If you can generalize, I can too.
If I want an opinion from a triage nurse, I’ll give you one after you incorrectly order a study. Every clinical service hates the ER for their vague interpretations and gross misuse of resources when ordering radiologic exams or consulting actual doctors. Maybe you should have audited an extra year to your tropical school of bugs.
will be interesting to see how ER and rads interact in the future with this apparent animosity. I expect it will be continued bitterness as every person from my class who went into ED did so because of “lifestyle” with the easy hrs and number of days off and a “churn and burn” attitude towards patient care. Don’t blame me for saying it, they were accepted to some of the best programs you have. While radiology again attracted the brightest and hardest working of my peers.
I’d fix your furniture before you start throwing rocks in a glass house.
I work in a family-run Radiolgy center and have been a part of the organization for 20+ years. I can assure you that our Radiologist reads ALL of his own images and arrives M-F at 7am, rarely leaving before 9pm. Saturday hours are 7:30am-3pm. He also reads dozens of stat, portable images throughout the week and ALWAYS has to read stat, portables on his one day off.
As for cars, I know waiters that drive Beamers. Does that make them scumbags, no, it might mean they actually saved their $ for something they desired. Your reference to what Radiologist drive is drivel….nothing more.
Vacations….right, our Dr. has been on one of those in the past 15 years. Days off dont exist for him. If he calls in sick (he never has) the office would close for the day Vacation Homes? Nope…none.
As a family-run, smaller imaging company, trust me…we’re lucky to be paying all of our employees and bills in these tough times. If you had any clue about what some imaging facilities go through financially, you might have a better appreciation for the scope of work that Rad’s provide. Then again, I doubt that. You’ve clearly demonstrated that you are a socially-awkward, bitter person.
I do want to say, that I’m not truly offended…..heck, I’m not a Radiologist. More than anything I’m embarrassed for you and am shocked at how unbelievably stupid you just made yourself look.
Well done Sir, well done!
As a board certified (x 3 now) EP in practice since 1978 in both private and, now, an academic situation, I would have to agree with the Radiologist’s outraged comments. I was always impressed by Dr. Mallon’s acumen about the state of medicine in the ED and how it should be practiced for the benefit of our patients and colleagues.
I am startled by his accusatory, whining and over-generalized comments as well as the snarky, grade school ‘Gee, I didn’t know so many radiologists read EPM’ comment.
Billy, you need to get some kind of eval. Your blood sugar was too low when you wrote this (and the EPM editor who gave it the green light needs to eat some carbs, too).
Every specialty, like everything else in life, has many good people and few bad ones. Every specialty deserves its due credit and respect. We all work to serve our patients. We all spent many years studying and training, and continue to do so, until we call it a quit. I chose to work in the Emergency Room 19 years ago, and I chose to work the night shift for 16 years and counting. I respect my colleagues in Radiology and all other specialties. They all respect me and appreciate me. I read all the plain films at night. Some films are read by the Radiologist before they leave (especially, when patients wait for few hours), or when I stay late in the morning. Throughout the years, I missed some findings, but I discovered few finding that were missed by Radiologists as well. NO ONE IS PERFECT. After finishing my night shift, I sit down for breakfast, for rush hour traffic to get better, and to talk with other physicians. We discuss our profession, which has changed as drastic as computers, in the last few decades. Each specialty has its own strengths and weaknesses. No specialty should claim exclusive right to superiority or distinction. Patients need our cooperation, not confrontation. Our profession demands from us, more than any time in the past, to rise above antagonism and bickering. Lawyers, Lawmakers and some greedy patients and families are tearing up our profession. We need our profession to mature and stand for our patients. If we do the right thing for our patients, we will be doing the right thing for ourselves. Please, humble yourselves and throw away everything that stains our profession.
Terence Alost claims that he reads his own MRI, U/S, and CT.
Wow. The stupidity of that comment takes away his credibility in an instant.
I’m glad he posts his name – God forbid I would ever go to an ER where he’s working, with the arrogance to think that he can interpret MRI, CT, and U/S.
A wise mentor once taught me:
Ignorance in medicine is bad, but common.
Arrogance is medicine is bad, but common.
Combine the two, however, and there is nothing more dangerous.
You must be great at interpreting CT, US and MRI if you rarely need a radiologist. Will you teach me?
I think that enough others have commented on this thread to get the point across.
I must say, however, after 31 of years, it’s rare to see something this unprofessional, and uncollegial (not to mention misinformed).
This reflects very poorly on USC, and in particular on the USC ED Department. Mallon seems to be one.
You can be sure that I will send this diatribe to the appropriate officials at USC, as well as at the relevant ED Society responsible for this publication.
Quite disappointing to say the least.
Medical school applications are stringent indeed; however, there are always a few who sneak through, that probably should not have.
Whoa – this mellon seems like a very unhappy man.
Someone tell him that noone likes an eternally unhappy person.
I think the thoughts could have been introduced more diplomatically but, there is some truth. I am not sure that many Radiologists are willing to admit that Medicine is now a 24 hr gig and there are some specialists who are needed 24/7. Radiologists are on that list. I have always said that I don’t wack out an acute appy because it’s 1 in the morning. Many of the comments from the Radiologists above comment that they are better at reading the films, can find the concerning nodules than Emergency Physicians. I agree, and that’s the point. They are better, that’s why they need to read real time. In the absence of real-time reads, the EP is left holding the bag to interpret and use the reading to treat the pt. This being said, when the film is ordered stat (as all are in the ED) that means immediately, not the next day. If the Radiologists aren’t delivering the service, why should they be paid to read it the next day? The answer, Radiology Hospitalists, agreements between multiple practices to read real-time at the affiliated hospitals 24/7 with call every 2 months or something. Bottom line, the service demanded is real-time reads. Who ever delivers that service should be paid.
Be nice.
The need for contemporaneous interpretations is real, and there’s a way to discuss it that will bring you closer to getting it. I’m a radiologist, and I want to add value, for both altruistic and selfish reasons.
By focusing on the reimbursement, you lose the high ground and your argument is weakened. If you had focused on patient care, your argument would be more persuasive, e.g. “Emergency Physicians are clearly not as good as radiologists at reading imaging exams, and patients at 3am often need a radiologist to look at the study, not a Emergency Physician.”
As it is, you are no closer to fixing the problem of non-contemporaneous reads and have diminished it to a squable over money; you’ve made no friends; you’ve given a bad name to your department and this publication; and you seem poor, petty, foolish, and powerless.
Some radiologists are angered by your post, but by the time I finished reading it and realized that this was about $19,000 dollars a year and you wanting a better car and lifestyle, I felt sorry for you.
You picked the wrong field, buddy. And I don’t mean the wrong subspecialty i.e. Emergency Medicine – I mean choosing to be a physician.
I’d like to echo the surprise that so many radiologists are reading EP Monthly – gives me hope for a good relationship amongst two specialties that are often-times dependent on each other to best treat the patient. After all, isn’t that why we all went into the medical field in the first place?
One large point of contention: though I realize a bit abrasive on some points, I have had the good fortune to both train under and work with Dr. Mallon, and he is undoubtedly one of the finest minds in the field (who for the record, drives a blue Mazda). If anyone, radiologist or otherwise, were to find themselves in an Emergency Department for any reason, your prognosis for a good outcome would increase substantially if this gentleman walks into the room. Don’t agree with me? Try talking to your local EM doc, no matter where in this WORLD you are…I guarantee they’ve heard of him, and probably sat in on a lecture or two at some point.
Another point of contention: one of the readers wrote above that EM docs don’t carry pagers. While that may be true in the typical sense, you forget that we carry a different type of pager – one given by society. True, ours is shift work and we’re not electronically connected to the medical center, but we do possess a responsibility to society to be on call outside of the hospital. Whether this is being first on-scene at a traffic accident on our way home or helping a random person out on a flight when that loudspeaker crackles with the “Can any doctors on board please push your call light”…ours is the unique spectrum of knowledge that allows us to start with nothing and get the medical ball rolling. Our knowledge base is useful on any terrain and within any walls that mankind experiences, so don’t make these immature comments about a superior level of training required to be a radiologist. If that’s really the way you feel, let’s see who you send your parents or children to when they’re really sick in the middle of the night, or in some unfortunate traffic accident…something tells me it’s not going to be a fellow radiologist.
Keep in mind that when it comes to modern medicine, there is no such thing as the one be-all, end-all doctor, and I, as well as every other physician, should take great offense from any physician claiming that their specialty is superior to another. EM serves its roll, as does radiology. We both serve unique purposes in the medical field and just like we can diagnose the appy but can’t cut it out, radiology possesses the same inadequacies. That’s why we both work as a team with the surgeons, who in turn work with the anesthesiologists, who work with the pharmacists, who work with the…you get the idea. Now let’s just all do a little bit better to keep that in mind.
As technology progresses to the point that computer algorithms will read 98% of our CT/MR studies I warn medical students to stay away from this specialty. I really don’t think it will be around in 15 years. Ultrasound is increasingly more portable/affordable and will therefore be in the hands of every clinician – the way it’s inventors intended. Ironically, its the plain films that will take the longest for computers to tackle.
I what think Billy was saying in HIS special way, is that many specialities (not just EM) already act on their own readings. This is evidenced by the fact that various GME programs spend increasingly more time dedicating education to relying on their own reads. Ask any young surgeon or hospitalist where the pathology is – they are quick to point it out. Its just a matter of time until the computers do this.
If you don’t believe this, think about how far technology has come since YOU started practicing medicine. Its not hard to imagine a massive set of “normal” and a few “definitely not normal” images that a computer picks through as thousands of images are coming off the 1024 slice CT scanner from your patient. You simply click on the abnormal ones, verify the pathology, and act accordingly.
This is patient-centric because it provides the most timely read, and saves money. Yes, it does take that personal touch out of the doctor-patient relationship that only a radiologist can provide but I think the our future patients can get over this.
Can you see now why its hard for me to support any medical student’s decision to enter radiology?
It’s funny how this EP only mentions plain films and forgets to mention that the majority of ER patients get panscanned with CT or MR!!! And of course the EPs can’t read those or even prelim those studies, because these are higher level studies that only radiologists are comfortable at reading. The radiologists are busy preliming and providing final reads on the CTs and MRs that are being ordered on the majority of the ER patients, as the patients are being rolled out of the scanner. You call us parasites for allowing residents to prelim cases at night while we do final reads in the AM. Why don’t you say that to all the FP, IM, peds and surgery physicians who have residents covering the hospital overnight and cross-covering patients for one another, while the attending is available at home for questions? I hope your chief of the hospital reads you article and disciplines you for your negative and non-collegial comments to your local radiologists. You owe all of them an apology.
I don’t know how medicine is taught in Peru, but comparing one’s colleagues to “parasites” in a published forum, demonstrates a gratuitous lack of competency in professionalism, systems-based practice, and interpersonal/communication skills. These represent 3 of the 6 ACGME core competencies (http://www.acgme.org/acwebsite/RRC_280/280_corecomp.asp) that form the backbone of the current residency training process. Dr. Mallor is supposed to be creating an environment that continually teaches and evaluates these core competencies. How can Dr. Mallor be allowed to work at an academic insitution when he voices his (obviously controversial) opinion in such an egregious manner that violates so many codes of professionalism and the foundation of the resident education process? And using a forum that is supposed to promote a scholarly environment?? I am thoroughly embarrassed.
Dr. Mallon should not be an associate professor at a teaching hospital, much less a reputable one such as USC (at least before this posting). The future success of emergency medicine as a specialty will demand continued close relationships with consulting physicians, and there is no greater relationship that needs to be nurtured than the ED-radiology one. It’s unfortunate that some of the best ED residents are being taught to carry such an enormous chip on their shoulder. If this individual is not immediately fired, then County-USC has some serious soul-searching to do as a supposed leader in the field of emergency medicine.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3efnZc0rYDg&feature=youtube_gdata_player
As an ER doc, I would agree with the radiologists that this is a very unprofessional article. I don’t for a second pretend to be anywhere near as good as a radiologist in interpreting films. That being said, some of the responses have been equally as incredulous and insulting.
Aren’t we all on the same team here? Seriously. Or are we all in high school fighting over who has the biggest pair?
This is a (scholarly?) medical publication, not cnn.com. Let’s act like it.
I have worked as a radiology resident at a Level 1 trauma center. The Pan scan ordered by the triage nurses, the nurse practitioners and the ER physicians themselves , many times without examining the patient with ZERO regard to their radiology peers is amazing. Sifting through thousand of images every hour with few breaks for bathrooms…I have slogged and slogged as radiology resident. I hate Level 1 trauma centers because I hate those damn fool ED physicians who order pan scans of patients who walk through their doors and WE get in trouble if we missed a 4 mm lung nodule. ED docs are crazy…..they have made all us radiologists crazier. I hate their ignorance and their nurse practitioners more so who work with them.
Can we all just get along. I been studying for my EM concert exam. Ifeel like I know Billy but he doesn’t know me. Billy is a great teacher. USC is lucky to have him. Afterall we are in medicine to treat and take care of our patient. Beside we enjoy a comfortable living in most field of medicine anyway. In my opinion radiology should be available more often. Sure radiologist has 5 yrs of experience in residency. But, they only have 1 yr of experience at bedside. I have seen some radiologist miss film simply because they didn’t examine the patient.(not their fault) Taking care of them, needs a teams of doctor and staff. From the tech who made sure the films are done right. ED staff who toke care of the patient. The radiologist helps by suggest the best test, coming in for interventional treatment when called. Bottom line we all need to work together. Who cares about the 15$ per hour ! Uncle sam takes half anyway!
I’m a radiologist.
99% of the ED docs that I’ve worked with, I’ve had and have nothing but the utmost of respect.
They work in an extremely difficult environment, and must deal with anything and everything that walks through the ED doors – anything from a simple cold to a ruptured aorta.
Similar for 99% of the radiologists that I’ve worked with.
I don’t know think Dr. Mallon knows how the financials in radiology have changed, but that’s a moot point.
Calling us both ‘frauds’ and ‘parasitic’ feels something like a kick in the face would likely feel.
It’s been a pleasure to have worked beside so many outstanding ED physicians, as well as so many outstanding radiologists (and every other type of physician) in my career. I’m just glad that I’ve never worked with Dr. Mallon.
Mallon’s attitude cannot be good for patient care, and reflects quite poorly on his department and his university. But I think we should just collectively ignore him and focus on the overwhelming positives.
If Dr. Mallon’s institution’s radiologists do not promptly interpret studies relevant to immediate treatment decisions 24 hours a day, then he is absolutely right. My group has been doing this at least 14 years. Even in one-radiologist shops, this can be arranged remotely. Frankly, I think any emergency department that operates as he describes should be shut down – or limited to dermatologic and psychiatric emergencies
On the other hand, I am surprised that none of the comments so far have made the distinction between findings that need to be acted on promptly and those that don’t. It doesn’t matter if the coughing smoker doesn’t find out about his cancer until the next morning. It matters even less if the finding is incidental to the symptom – like the breast cancer at the edge of a chest CT image. Even back when the radiologist did not see the film for days, his input added [i]something[/i], even if the immediate management was already done.
Finally, aside from the training issue, the problem with ER specialists being paid to read imaging studies is that they are the ones who order them, so it’s an obvious incentive to overutilize. (In most places, radiologists can recommend, but not actually order the tests themselves – a rule that should be extended to the many other specialists who have encroached on imaging.)
ED resident makes the underlying point that we all need to get along to serve the patient best.
Definitely. ED physicians have a very tough job. We do as well. And every other specialty does as well.
The reason that you’re seeing all of the angry responses by radiologists is because of what mellon wrote, insulting to our entire specialty. He threw the barb, and radiologists, rightly offended, are responding.
BTW, the ‘pager given by society’ talk is almost poetic…;-)
I can remember being advised against entering by an older anesthesiologist who told me that “computers will be making all the diagnoses in 10 years. You need to *do* something.”
That was in 1992……. and we’re not much closer to computerized interpretation even the simplest imaging studies (no where near on MRI/CT) than we were then.
Dr. Mallon your article is simply unproffesional!
My issues are this:
1) To compare any human being let alone a professional colleague to a parasite is disrespectful and niave.
2) To argue over $19,000 seems childish. Most radiology physcians I know work more than 40 hours a week easily 50+. If you would like an extra $19k, do a couple more shifts.
3) You work at an academic institution of high caliber. If you dont want to deal with residents I suggest you go to private practice.
4) I highly doubt you are reading ultrasounds, MRIs and CTs overnight by yourself at a level I trauma center so your argument seems mute.
5) Since you admit there is a radiologist on call pick up the phone and consult the radiologist on any difficult plain films. Lets use our standard ED model. If we have a patient with a headache, we wil not consult neurosurgery every time. If there is an issue then we consult neurosurgery and even then at academic centers the neurosurgery attending does not come to see the patient, an intern will, not a PGY4 resident as in radiology.
6) You have fallen into every government officials trap! Instead of arguing for a larger pie you have already admitted the pie should be smaller and that you just want a bigger piece. Please never ever be a lobbyist!!! Your political skills are not your strongpoint to say the least.
7) Finally, the facts are radiology residency is longer than ED residency. I am not saying they are better trained but the length is an opportunity cost. They give up several years of attending salary and hence should be compensated slightly more for the loss.
Overall Dr. Mallon if you had a bad day or bad experience I suggest you not generalize it and then put it in writing where it can be critqued and analyzed as false. There are no enemies. We entered medicine so we dont have an enemy our goal is to treat the patient!!
In our medical system, each physician speciality has only a piece of patient care. We’re all specialists now (including the ED physicians and the radiologists) and we rely on each other to provide excellent, although fragmented, medical care to our patients. Oslers are few and far between in most settings.
Even in rural communities, virtually nobody practices full-spectrum medical care any longer. At our facility, we put this battle to rest many years ago and the radiology group (while not onsite) stepped up to provide time-of-service accurate 24/7/365 reads which are not always necessary but quite frequently provide indispenable information that would have otherwise been missed or delayed.
We should not allow billing and coding rules to divide the medical community. We rely on each other’s expertise to get the job done and there is no place for insulting one another. We all want pie, but it is below us as physicians to shove our colleagues face in it to get our piece!
Hahahahahaha. If Mallon’s concern is truly about health care economics, it should be pointed out that the biggest, most profligate waster of the health care economic pie due to ordering of unindicated high-dollar imaging studies is the ER by a longshot!!!! Millions of wasted dollars in false “rule out cord compression” MRI studies alone, typically justified by either incompetently obtained or obviously fabricated clinical histories on request forms by docs who are either unable or unwilling to do a proper physical exam.
This piece may be a companion article to Dr. Silverman’s article that was published the day before in Emergency Physicians monthly. It was on the front page two articles below on the day of publication.
https://epmonthly.wpengine.com/features/current-features/teambuilding-101-just-say-no-to-jerks/
A few comments:
“Parasite” implies we receive an undue benefit. Reading ER plain films is hardly one. Most groups would be more than happy not to have to read them.
As a radiologist, I have enjoyed very collegial relationships with most of the ER docs. They have a tough job, and I respect that. With most, that relationship is reciprocal. Just remember that us hedging is the equivalent of you ordering a test you know will be negative for CYA purposes.
@ a dying specialty: clearly you’ve never heard of CAD with mammography. Despite millions of research bucks, and multiple companies attempting to create a high-functioning CAD, no one has yet created one that functions remotely like a human. Like all of medicine, radiology is far more art than science. Machines can help, but won’t supplant humans in the near future.
@horsedoc: that the best you got? The nucs analogy doesn’t work. For starters, most rads would agree a nucs fellowship prepares you better than a general radiologist. Same goes for a neuroradiologist being better at reading head CT’s than a general rad. Many larger rad groups have dedicated nucs people. The only reason all don’t is a lack of volume. Most of the hospitals we cover do about 2-3 nucs per day, can’t sustain a full time position. Simple fact is that radiologists are better at reading ER plain films than ER docs. Not an insult – they have a whole lot else to train in and worry about. Sad fact is that an argument with some validity has been tarnished by a bunch of name calling, in this case.
@ Terence Alost: darn right we’re calling to say we told you about the abnormality. In my experience, about a third of the time you guys didn’t see it (thoroughly scientific estimate). If the call bothers you so much, try putting a prelim report down. I’m calling a big BS on you reading CT and MRI without contemporaneous reads from some radiologist. If you are, you’re doing your patients a tremendous disservice, and opening yourself up to quite a lot of liability, especially given the availability of telerad services.
@ER resident: Mallon may be one of the “finest minds in the field”. I clearly have no idea. What I do know is that he’s one of the biggest jerks walking the planet, with a maturity level of a second grader. Sorry to see such a petulant child occupying a position of authority.
Let’s all pool our money and buy the guy a german car, for God’s sake.
Of all the challenges and legitimate battles emergency medicine has to fight, this is not one of them.
The comments section of the article is as equally depressing as the article itself.
Meanwhile, CMS, insurance companies, bureaucrats and attorneys run roughshod over the decade plus of your life and thousands of dollars you spent training.
Bicker away. There’s at least a dozen industries happy to let you think that the radiologists are the parasites feeding off your hard work. And while physicians sit around fighting, they win.
I am ashamed for all of medicine.
Dr. Mallon should be ashamed of himself.
And you radiologists who responded in kind on a PUBLIC forum should be ashamed as well. Sure he went way over the line, but it is equally unprofessional to fight his fire with more fire.
Grow up, guys.
I am ashamed for all of medicine.
Dr. Mallon should be ashamed of himself.
And you radiologists who responded in kind on a PUBLIC forum should be ashamed as well. Sure he went way over the line, but it is equally unprofessional to fight his fire with more fire.
Grow up, guys.
It has been a long time since I have read an article by a physician who is so arrogant, that he thinks he is the only one contributing to the health of patients. I am a radiologist who is highly valued and respected in my community. When we are on call, we are in house, twelve hour shifts, like you. I can be in house reading 24 hours in two days. I read, with years of experience and expertise, innumerable studies with outcomes critical to patients well being and management. How incredibly narrow minded you are to think the your plain film interpretation is the key to all. I started keeping count of the number of missed significant findings by our ER docs and the number was not small. The interpretation skill of our ER docs varies widely. I feel like I am your safety net, catching your mistakes and not getting paid. Most ER docs I know do NOT have the skill to be rendering final interpretations, even on plain film. Truthfully, you should be focusing on direct patient care.
While I read multiple modalities, I am a breast imaging specialist. I do not know a single colleage who would call me a parasite. I have the respect of every single general surgeon I work with. I save lives everyday with my skill, training and committment to medicine. How selfish an article you have written. In the end, just boils down to money and ego, inflated.
Oh ya, I drive a 7 year old American made car. I never leave work before 6 p.m. I am available to the breast center 5 days a week, and am on call a weekend a month for 12 hours at a time, in a high volume hospital, with at least 17 hours or more in house. I work hard contrary to your warped sense of what you think you know about my world and my job.
As an attending at a very large South East academic center, and having a brother as an attending IR Doc at a large academic center as well, I can’t imagine where Dr. Mallon was coming from. Needless to say, I appreciate my rad’s companions, and enjoy their company. Of note though, there are plenty of smaller ED’s that have no reading from Friday 4p to Monday 9a, which I’m not sure if he is directing his angst toward?
Dr. Mallon,
Please forgive me and my group of swindling Radiologists for participating in the care of patients at our 1200 bed hospital in Central Ohio. We have demonstrated a very dubious level of service for the last 15 years by providing a continuously manned ( or womaned) seat in our department, 24/7/365. This has included contemporaneous readings of all imaging studies at our facility. We did this, not because it was expedient from a financial or lifestyle standpoint, but because it was the right thing to do from a patient care standpoint. We knew this was necessary, since so much of medical triage in the modern system is done with imaging. Apparently, this effort was insincere and useless on our part. Because I feel so guilty about all this “fraud” that our group has committed at 3 am over the last decade and a half, I will propose that our group make a contribution to Dr Mallon’s car fund, as he obviously sees his individual worth via his automobile. It must be a ghastly site…… And I bet the auto looks pretty bad too.
As for Dr Mallon, I have but one more question, When your mother or other family member has an emergency that requires imaging diagnosis ( are there any that don’t?), are you really going to forego the expertise of your local fraud mongering radiologist? Really? I am sure you can perform cardiac caths and laparoscopic cholecystectomies, just like the actors on the TV show, “ER”
Good luck to you. I have to get back to taking care of patients at 3 am. And I will never apologiize to you for doing it
Why is this kind of internecine warfare happening?
Who stands to gain when specialists fight with one another? Over money.
Understand the force. Do not fight it.
Inferiority Complex blocks people’s eyes and brains.
Whoa now. Everyone settle down. I used to work at a hospital where the US/CTs were read by nighthawks at night and on weekends. We read plain films, then did call-backs Monday morning as needed. I now work at a hospital with contemporaneous radiology reads of all films. Both systems had their pluses and minuses, but I think my current situation is far better. If the EPs have to make the initial read, they should be paid part or all of the fee for reading it. That’s fair, anyone can see that.
Parasites? I wouldn’t go that far. But if we need radiology to read films, we need them to do it 24/7. Why have a lower standard of care after-hours?
I’m glad we have a great relationship with our radiologists. They read CT’s/ultrasounds in-house 24/7, and read plain films 16 hours of the day.
Yes, I make most of my decisions based on my own plain film reads, but I like having radiologists over-read my films. There’s been quite a few small fractures I’ve missed, and I couldn’t even tell you how many lung nodules I’ve missed that were caught by the radiologist and sent to our health system’s section that deals with patient callbacks.
What’s next? Are we as emergency physicians going to do our own heart caths and say interventional cardiologists are no longer needed?
For those radiologists that think we order too many tests, you’re right. I know I do. It’s defensive medicine. Give me good tort reform and you’ll see your number of studies decrease, which unfortunately will lead to a lower salary for you.
Please realize Dr. Mallon’s opinion and rant is not shared by most emergency physicians.
As a EM physician at a large academic institution trained in both specialties all I can say is that I’M embarrassed by Dr. Mallon’s comments as well everyone here on both sides making wide sweeping generalizations. Anyone who doesn’t value the work of our radiology colleagues or think that they don’t have the same ethical standards as anyone else is a fool. Anyone who doesn’t think a well trained EM physician is a real doc or simply gets CTs because they don’t have clinical acumen is an even bigger fool. Re-read some of your comments (residents, faculty and private attendings alike) and ask yourself if this is the way to act? Do any of you making these sweeping generalizations teach medical students? If so, I hope you teach them better ways to solve problems then the comments many of you have made here. You should be ashamed.
I am on the same playing field with the radiologists and ED physicians here who respect the work of each other. Those that are making the generalizations are the problem. I spent 2 years in radiology before doing a 4 year EM residency. I know the importance and value of the specialty of radiology. but I also know the stress of having to deal with a large volume ED. But here is the comment I need to address:
From Bryce – “the clinical acumen of an ER doc is zero”. really Bryce? Where I work we identify the subtle posterior wall MI, not cardiology. We institute early goal directed therapy for sepsis, not the ICU. We manage diaXbetic ketoacidosis, not the internist, we treat the unstable beta blocker overdose and we reduce the dislocated shoulder, not ortho)…I could go on and on. You are different than Billy Mallon…cut from the same naive cloth. I respect your knowledge. Perhaps you can respect mine and not act like the person who wrote this article.
I have worked in the ED department for a period of time before switching to diagnostic radiology, and although the article is somewhat inflammatory, there is validity is several of his points. The clinical management of the patient is dependent on a lot of times on the imaging findings, and this is extremely time sensitive as the patient waits for your decision. Having a report come in 24 hours later, or lets say even 2 hours later, is often irrelevant as the management of the patient has already been decided.
The amount of negative comments on the article, in my opinion, lies with the impression that Mallon is “dissing” the speciality, and if I can say, a subconscious feeling that what he is saying actually holds a grain of truth.
Please accept all liability that goes along with that.
You might want to do some additional financial calculations before you decide to claim your bigger share of the “pie.” As “no large pneumothorax” and “no big fracture” and “no pneumonia'” aren’t going to cut it when you go to court for missing the findings you will certainly miss. The cost of your malpractice insurance and legal bills will easily outstrip your newfound windfall profits.
I work at an academic hospital and also cover remotely a couple of our sister institutions for advanced imaging. Radiology provides comprehensive coverage of our discipline and as others have pointed out we don’t work a few shifts a week. We do this in addition to our regular workday responsibilities. So when you are leaving in your fancy SUV (because let’s not act like you are on the bottom of the physician pay totem pole) in the morning after your shift, I am coming in to continue to do my work.
Given that our ED performs fast scan ultrasounds, I am familiar with ED competency levels of image interpretation. You would think as advances are made in medicine that you might be better served focusing on what you are already paid to do….examine and actually take a history from the patient. If you still have a desire to stick it to the radiologist, there is plenty of opportunity to do so; simply puruse the appropriateness criteria for the studies you order and stop ordering the ones that aren’t indicated which are a huge drag on the medical system.
I am glad to know that you are concerned about money grubbing parasites in medicine. I am sure that US physician salaries had nothing to do with your decision to leave beautiful Peru.
This essay was entertaining, provocative, humorous, and mildly abrasive (by Billy’s standard). I thought Billy held back a bit…there wasn’t a single F-bomb for instance. It’s laughable to read so many posts disparaging his lack of professionalism and calls to ouster him from academics. The central theme is that I will spend my time reviewing a film (often to exclude a diagnosis) and that my interpretation is uncompensated. The reason it’s uncompensated is complex but distilled to the fact that one film equals one billable read. Those of us with some grey hairs have plenty of experience in over reading a radiologists interpretation of a head bleed, spinal fracture, pneumothorax, etc and I have never asked to be reimbursed for that service. Our patients are better served by both our reads and we should both be compensated. I never worry about missing a nodule, or para-aortic LNs, there is nothing emergent about them( didn’t say they weren’t important) and the patient can follow up for many of the suggested clinical correlations. But imagine if you reduced a fracture and then weren’t compensated for the reduction because the patient had an operative reduction that same day. You’d be calling foul just like Billy and after so many years you might compare the orthopod to an arthropod( see that’s a humorous implication cleverly using two words that sound alike, involving pestilence and vectors). And you would be right to complain. Who is looking out for you and suggesting how to get payed? Billy and many others like him. If I am resuscitating a person in the ICU overnight and managing their vent, pressors, debriefing family , and consults your damn straight that I am taking the critical care reimbursement. I love and respect my intensivists but I am getting mine. Trust me you want me holding an ultrasound probe while I am determining if your loved one has free fluid or a pericardial effusion in the most critical time of their life. You want me to do it for free, now those are fighting words. So hats off to Billy for an entertaining look at the dull world of diminishing, accountable, non-balanced, ‘meaningful use’, and thoroughly disappointing state of medical reimbursement. To my parasitic colleagues: get over it the number of names I get called just by one grumpy cardiologist would suffice let alone how often we are second guessed in the daylight while you are all sipping lattes in the lounge. Here is a mantra learned from David Sedaris’ “that motherf::@&! $h!t doesn’t mean f:&@ to me”. say it often and you will be pleasantly released from criticism. In the end we do what’s best for the patient, both sets of eyes on the film, I get your back you get mine and feel free to loan me that fancy care from time to time.
Mallon’s piece is pure opinion of course. We are supposed to be a profession guided by science. Here is an actual test.
Measuring Performance in Chest Radiography
E. James Potchen, MD, Thomas G. Cooper, MSEE, Arlene E. Sierra, MPA, Gerald R. Aben, MD, Michael J. Potchen, MD, Matthew G. Potter, BS and James E. Siebert, MS
November 2000 Radiology, 217, 456-459.
This article compared Radiologists to radiology residents to nonradiologists (attending pulmonologists, oncologists, family practice, and ER physicians in a standard set of radiographs. The results were evaluated using ROC analysis.
area under ROC curve: Radiologist. .860, Radiology residents – .749, non radiologist physicians: .657. (recall that 1.0 is perfect, .500 is a toss up: chance association).
I suppose this proves that training and experience actually matter. Yes, it is intuitive, but intuitive results should be confirmed. If Dr. Mallon does not believe training and experience do matter, then Dr. Mallon should simply turn his job over to NP’s and PA’s. If, on the other hand, he believes that training and experience matter, he should pay close attention to the attention to the interpretations of his radiologist colleagues, as they will far more often be right, and his patients will have better outcomes, which I think is our raison d’etre.
The ER docs at my level one trauma center academic medical school make 225K for a 36 hour work week. Three twelve hour shifts. The IR doc makes 305K and works 7:30am-6pm 5 days a week and is on call 24 hours Q3 weekends and Q3 nights….and comes in often. The other attendings make 275K and work 8-6pm 5 days a week and are Q5 week on phone call ( get called twice per night) and Q5 weekend call, both Sat and Sun from 8-6pm. The cardiologist I used to go to makes 1,500,000.00 dollars per year doing unnecessary echo on his patients and works 43 hours per week. NO CALL. So what is this article about again? I forgot, I was too busy writing all the zero’s in the cardiologists salary… Oh by the way the cardiologists in the hospital make 300K and take Q4 CACU CALL!!!!!!!!
Did you not get into a US med school and therefore had to go to peru to get your md, mbbs or watever they give out there? Is the reason you harbor so much animosity towards radiologists secondary to the fact that you were unable to get into radiology residency because you are an international grad?
There are crazy people in every profession, so instead of being mad at this bitter sad man, I think people should be angry at the EP monthly for publishing such hateful inacurate garbage.
just saying….
@ Bryce: Just FYI, respiratory therapists don’t intubate.
Further to the point, everyone says to foster a more collegial environment with professional cooperation. Putting down EM doctors and making similar negative generalizations as the article does not serve this goal. If you are upset that he has made a fool of himself and sounded ignorant and angry, don’t supply the thread with more of the same. That would seem to be common sense.
I DO NOT agree with the article. But those radiologists that wrote that their hospital is covered 27/7 by radiology need to realize that not all hospitals are the same in that respect. Just like the author must realize that maybe his hospital is just inferior when it comes to radiology–maybe he should consider applying at an institution such as the ones you all describe, if this set-up (which is not uncommon in EDs) is so bothersome to him.
My point, ultimately, is that every hospital is different in its level of service just as every doctor is different in their level of intelligence, diligence and clinical skills. Don’t take it so personally when someone so ignorant insults your profession, and don’t return the favor with hatred and resentment of your own.
Can’t we all just get along?!
I am not a radiologist. I don’t want your job. I don’t like having to read all my own films. I like interacting with patients and their families and resuscitating patients that are trying very hard to die. If I had to spend all day in a dark room ferreting out occult malignancies, I might gnaw my own arm off. I think it is great that you like that and are good at it. You are far better at reading images than I am. If I can’t figure out what I am looking at, you are the first person I call. But sometimes I need to make an immediate decision based on an image and I can’t wait for your read. And if I am doing the work and assuming the risk then I should be compensated for it.
So to the radiologists on here posting that they read all their films in 10 minutes or less. Hey, you guys are great. Keep up the good work. I’m sure the ER doctors you work with are glad to have you on the team. But to all the radiologists on here outraged that Dr. Mallon has the nerve to point out that you shouldn’t be billing for a read that is too late to assist in the diagnosis and treatment of the patient (Recent example, “Why was this patient sent home?”. Because we can’t keep a patient with knee pain waiting in the ED for TWO DAYS for your read) – well, the vehemence of your response makes me think you doth protest too much.
It’s clear that this man’s unprofessional attitude will hinder the multi-disciplinary approach to medicine patients require in the ED and throughout their hospital stay. Instead of talking about his un-professionalism – let’s prevent Mallon from interfering with future patient care. I encourage all of you to email his superiors:
Department of Emergency Medicine
1200 N. State St Rm 1011
Los Angeles, CA 90033-1029
Main Office: (323) 226-6667
Fax: (323) 226-6454
Edward Newton, MD
Department Chair
Sean Henderson, MD
Department Vice-Chair
Residency Program
1200 N. State St. Rm 1018
Los Angeles, CA 90033-1029
Office: (323) 226-6937
Fax: (323) 226-8101
Stuart Swadron, MD
Vice Chair – Education
Jan Shoenberger, MD
Associate Program Director
Thomas Mailhot, MD
Assistant Program Director
Brendan Kelleher, MD
Assistant Program Director
Ron Welch
Residency Program Manager
Susan Arnwine
Secretary
Medical Student Education
Mailing Address:
1200 N. State St. Rm 1011
Los Angeles, CA 90033-1029
Office: IPT Building- Rm C1A100
Phone: (323) 409-6812
Jorge Fernandez, MD
Medical Student Clerkship Director
Gay Lewis-Taylor
Coordinator
mallon – get off your rant. I’m an California ED doc, drive a Ferrari F458, and love my radiologists! They have saved me countless times, and are likely the reason I can still drive my Ferrari! Now, if you’d like to upgrade your Mazda, go to your local Walmart, they are ready to train you for your new position has head scrub salesman. By the way, great job lighting the fire.
What an over generalized offensive article. I am a radiologist, and I work at night. We try to get reads back in 30 minutes or less. I interviewed at many groups – most of the good ones now provide 24 hour reads, and are moving towards subspecialty reads 24/7.
Get a life buddy. Get out and see the world. And what’s that about residents?? Has anyone ever seen the neurosurg attending seeing patients at 3 in the morning? A good rads resident knows when to call the fellow or attending; just like in all the other specialties.
As an EM physician I do agree with the comments of teamwork and being collegial. I am a physician who has had the pleasure of working and training under Dr. Mallon. I severely echo the previous comments made to support his clinical accumen – if one of my family members was sick, I would for sure breathe a sigh of relief if he walked through the door.
For those radiologists whom are writing comments, a request. Will someone please address the facts of this discussion. Too much time has been wasted on atacking each other’s training and other facets of our respective specialties. Can we please get a radiologists answer to this question:
Why should a radiologist bill for an emergent interpretation that was done 24-48 hours post discharge?
There is no doubt that a radiologist is a better interpreter of all things imaging; sometimes that is not a feasable request. We do not consult cardiology on all chest pain patients (despite popular belief), we do not CT scan all abdominal pain (again depite popular belief, nor do triage nurses have the authority to order such scans in most US EDs) and we do not need an expert radiologist with most plain films that we feel comfortable making dispo decisions based on.
This raises the question; why shouldn’t we get compensation for interpreting these films and making clinical decisions based on such interpretation (albeit it may be wrong from time to time). We take on the responsibility to have the patient followed up and potential ‘badness’ be protected against. The real question is what added-value does a radiologist add when they are interpreting a film that is 24-48 hours post discharge?
In the instance where radiology can read the film prior to discharge, then by all means they should bill for such. But when the read is done by an EP and dispo decisions made on that interpretation, why should an EP not bill for such an interpretation.
Again, Dr. Mallon may be rough around the edges but he is a true expert in the feild of acute emergency care. All of your respected sick friends and family would be blessed to be under his care, if they haven’t been saved already.
As an ED doc, I’m sad to hear this nonsense from a colleague. He has no place in an academic institution. I have to admit that I always need the help of my consultants, being radiology, medicine or surgery. On behalf of my ED docs, my appologies to all Radiologists for mad mallon’s rants.
If you Doctors want to complain about your Profession/ Specialities do so with RESPECT!! You Radiologist need not to mention RN’s or NP’s working in the ER. I’ve been an ER RN for 20yrs and if we have ordered radiologic studies it because we have protcols that we are allow to follow or the ER MD has seen the patient and written the order. NP’s are advanced pratice and order what they deemed necessary. Oh and by the way, it’s the NURSE Manager who calls the patient back for mis-read films from both ER MD’s and Radiologist!!
What about when I call the ED physician about more history to interpret a study more accurately and the all too common response is “I haven’t seen the patient yet?”
How hard can it be to click a box and order the “abdominal pain or chest pain” work up? Would one even need a medical degree to practice medicine this way?
Dr. Mallon is a total loser
I am not sure if you all are talking about “Billy” Mallon, ED doc, or “Billy” Mallon, street performer. Could someone please clarify? [url]http://www.uscdem.org/bios11-76-2/AssociateProfessorofClinicalEmergencyMedicine[/url]
And one more thing, can anyone on this forum spell? Aren’t you all supposed to be educated individuals?
While much of this piece can dismissed as the sophomoric rant of a frustrated physician after a bad shift, some of this must be taken quite seriously.
Dr. Mallon’s allegations of criminal fraud by his radiology colleagues at USC cannot be let to stand unchallenged. I call upon you, Dr. Mallon, to issue a formal retraction and apology for this libelous dreck.
I also call upon the editors of EPM to retract the piece and recognize their extremely poor poor oversight and judgement by allowing it to be published at all.
I have forwarded this link to both my state ACR representatives as well as to the American Society of Emergency Radiologists for their review. I would ask other radiologists to do the same.
Who publishes this nonsense!? I can’t find any sign of a rational thought backed by evidence! Go back to school for another 3 years and learn how to read a radiograph if you want more pie… This reflects poorly on the hiring practices of USC. Who wants to work for a hospital that hires physicians bent on self interest? Nothing about this article is good for patient care…
The validity of this article has already been discreditrd by the above comments and by the tone of the article itself. As a radiology resident at LAC/USC I would just like to add that this article should in no way reflect negatively on the EM department at County. Both radiology and EM training programs at LAC are renown for their faculty and the quality of education they provide in the setting of one of the busiest and most underserved hospitals in the US. A collegiate and professional relationship between both faculty and residents of the two departments is the norm at our institution. What this article demonstrates is that there’s a black sheep in every family.
Not to say that there is no room for improvement, but if the purpose of this article was to open a conversation about optimizing patient care by improving work flow between the ER and radiology, then the trolley has jumped the tracks. There is nothing noble, helpful or enlightening in this article. Blatantly calling radiologists parasites and accusations of fraud (!), are provocative statements meant to degrade the relationship between the two departments. Luckily, the overwhelming majority of our colleagues understands that this is just the unprofessional opinion of one man.
If, on the other hand, the purpose of this article was to serve as a “call to arms” to fight for a bigger piece of the pie, then as some of the previous posters said, you should better pick your battles, Dr Mallon. ER chest x-rays are a valuable diagnostic study and should be reviewed carefully, but they are by no means a “cash cow” to radiologists. Many radiology groups read chest x-rays virtually for free. As a prior poster mentioned, the billings you’ll get from these studies will soon be overshadowed by the cost of lawsuits from findings that you will inevitably miss. You WILL miss findings that the radiologist would have caught, and that is in no way a reflection on which specialty is more important ( a ridiculous notion!). It goes both ways. I can’t do your job. I can do part of your job poorly. To me that’s obvious.
And even if the patient doesn’t sue, are you sure that $19,000/yr is worth having x number of patients walking out of your ER with undiagnosed lung cancers?
Honestly, this article seemed more like a venting, that should have been said to a buddy over a beer and not exposed in a public professional journal and using the name of our institution.
I know about this article because someone forwarded me the link. I don’t read this website otherwise. Look I am a radiologist and I see to some degree where the author is coming from. A lot of rads provide a poor level of service and this why clinicians don’t like us as a whole. If you listen to what your referral base says and modify your reporting style in ways that don’t result in lower quality of care, you will make your referral base happy. Don’t bludgeon them to death with ‘Correlate clinically’ if they don’t like it. But as far as what happens at the author’s hospital with overnight reads…he should have more of a beef with hospital administration than with the individual rads who come in the next AM. Admin is the entity that structured that contract with the rad group, or set the rules for in house radiology. So either you have the pull to change things to your satisfaction…or you don’t and you should switch to a different job as your current one is obviously making you miserable. And the emotions that are being spewed out here…are you educated people as a whole? Really? No wonder physicians have such little clout overall. Most of you are out for blood. If you really believe computers can replace radiologists for example, then by the same logic computers will be able to replace a lot of other specialties. It’s all just identifying a standard normal range and then seeing which lab values or physical exam findings are outside of that range, right? So then ECG reading, lab evaluations, even simple surgeries will all be done by machines. Use your brains please. Computers have limitations, they will never be able to think outside of the box. And also understand that if we as physicians do not realize that we would do better to stand as one group vs warring specialties we are finished. Have you ever found a lawyer willing to cut down another lawyer in a public forum no matter how much they hate the other guy? NO! That’s why they run everything and we are slaves.
You mean to tell me its the triage nurse who orders pan scans on people who come in after ground level falls? LOL.
Dr. Mallonhead,
After working in the ED and close proximity to radiology dept. I think you have hurt your ED brain from radiation toxicity. Come to my hospital and work one day as radiologist and if you survive than you are eligible for writing such stupid comments. I showed to my ED this article and they started laughing and said who is this guy who publish article like this??
Shame on you!! Before open your mouth or pen, think twice. Sometimes silence is golden:-))
Great article
Brings to mind a couple of real life scenarios that I encountered during my apparently worthless residency training:
1) When I was a first year resident in Radiology, I honestly had an attending from the ED call me and ask “what does spondylolysis mean?”
Best of luck with those plain film reads. Oh, and try Stedman’s Medical dictionary if you have any questions you run into while dictating your reports.
2) Countless times have I called the ED to let an EP know that a patient in fact has appendicitis and asked
“How tender is the patient in the right lower quadrant”
EP response: “Oh…ummm…which patient?…ummmm….oh, I haven’t gotten a chance to examine them yet”
Great news. Just what we need, the same guys who grossly, needlessly, and unecessarily overuse imaging to start billing for its interpretation….TALK ABOUT FRAUD
You want to get back at me Dr Mallon? Hit me in the pocket book and reduce the amount of unecessary examinations that you order 24/7/365…then at least the patient will benefit.
As a Radiology Technologist, I find this troubling. As the one who actually performs the exams and is way too often thrust between these antagonistic factions, it is sad to witness this played out in this article. Truth be told, I know when I see the ED on duty who does and who does order bogus exams. Furthermore, by the Rad on duty, I know who will give proper readings and whose may be suspect. Ignorance and Arrogance, what a sad combination indeed. We are watching.
The reality between doing shift work and daily work is the fundamental problem. Shift work of 40 hours is the least of all speciality done by ED physicians. Radiology works differently. Daily work, after hour coverage and on call. If you really want to interpret illegal immigrant images and get paid for it go for it. On the other hand don’t forget you are taking taxpayer money to fund that institution so maybe you should not be ordering those studies just like in Peru.
I can think of nothing more worthless than an ER physician who wants to see patients for a few hours and then dump them on someone else.
The hospital I work for has 24/7 365 radiologist coverage. There are no residents in the radiology group and our hospital is a level 2 trauma center; not as prestigious as massive teaching hospitals, but not a bumpkin county hospital either. Furthermore, our ER physicians have an excellent working relationship with the rads, and I have great respect for both types of physicians. They are available to each other on an immediate basis. I am frequently in the middle as I am a lowly radiographer, but I am fortunate enough to have a much more complete view of how this relationship really works. I know from my position, I don’t have the credentials to criticize any physician. I am sure you have all worked with some really dumb and incompotent rad techs and nurses, but I assure you I am not one of them. The truth is, there are ignorant people in every profession. Just to cover my back side in case a sensitive Sally reads this, ignorant simply means without knowledge and is not an insult to anyone’s IQ or level of education. Ignorant is how I would describe Dr. Mallon for his tirade. He is ignorant of how other institutions operate and ignorant of how a professional would handle his dissatisfaction with a local problem. If the relationship with the radiologists in his area of the world is not a functioning one, then he should have taken steps to correct it at his institution. Insulting a profession as a whole is profoundly ill advised as well as very childish and small minded. He is one of 7.5 billion people on this planet so just what makes him think his view of a local problem is grounds to launch a tirade against anything? I am not a physician, but I think I can diagnose Dr. Mallon’s disorder. He suffers from a Craniorectal inversion. This causes the afflicted party to be extremely near sighted and narrow minded. The victim of this all to common disorder often makes broad generalizations about nearly everything they know nothing about. His view of the world is very skewed from his perspective. You see, it is hard to be aware of how anything really operates on a large scale when your head is lodged firmly up your own anus. The confinement and low O2 saturation may cause delusions of grandeur and over stated self importance. If any of you physicians have colleauges that practice proctology and neurology, please get these two specialists together in an attempt to get this poor angry little man some help. Health care is under enough pressure without physicians being at each other’s throats.
Most of the physicians I know chose their speciality because they liked it and seemed to have a knack for it, not because it might pay an extra couple hundred grand! Afterall, what and who really determines how much you are reimbursed for your services? If you see primarily government insured patients or uninsured patients, you are not likely getting paid a fair amount for your services. It is just part of your job and for all your education you should have learned life isn’t fair.
People love to sue hospitals and physicans. ER doctor’s are often on the front line of this. When they order “superfluous” exams, they know the exam is most likely going to be negative, but images provide proof. So a patient comes in with neck pain and the ER doc knows it is most likely whiplash, they will still need to order some form of imaging (usually CT) to prove the patient was fine while they were under their care. There are people crazy enough to complain of pain and if they are not given xray in some form and sufficient narcotics, they will intentionally and significantly injure the body part and report promptly to the next closest ER. Then they will complain that the last “stupid Doctor didn’t do nuthin’ for my pain” and so begins a malpractice suit. So the biggest obstacle to all healthcare is malpractice lawyers. You have all seen ads on television for them, “If you or someone you know blah blah blah. You may be entitled to compensation.” Why does anyone deserve compensation for knowing someone that was 89 years old and died in the OR while having a DePuy hip replacement!? The major consumers of the health care pie (lets call it a pecan pie, because it is full of sugary sweet nuts just like healthcare and I like it better than Key Lime) does not even provide healthcare! Think of all the money paid in malpractice insurance, erroneous lawsuits, bad debt from people who simply do not pay into the system they abuse, I mean use. It is not ANY physician’s fault that one speciality makes less than another. As physicians, any of you are likely to be the one who saves a life, for better or worse, you cannot place a price on that. I think Dr. Mallon has overlooked this point and has lost satisfaction with his profession. Generals do not fight wars, but are always remebered for winning or losing them.
This may be the most misinformed, inflammatory article I have ever seen by a physician. I will refrain from calling you names, but it is scary that someone so ignorant, bitter and misinformed has attainted your position and practices medicine. Either you are practicing in the hitherlands or are still practicing medicine from 20 years ago.
1. 25 years ago, I might have agreed with some of your points. However, in the 2000s, almost all larger communities and now even most smaller communities have emergency radiologic studies interpreted contemporaneously on a 24/7/365 basis, either utilizing nighthawks which they pay out of their pocket, often paying for studies to be read after hours in which they will never get reimbursed due to the high “self pay” mix seen in ERs. The teleradiology business has burgeoned due to this. Many groups including my own, do “internal nighthawking” meaning they have on of their own radiologists read studies around the clock. In my group, we do a 7 day shift working from about 9PM to 6AM and read every emergency study by PACS and provide an immediate final report by voice recognition software. This is an extremely difficult, stressful and exhausting shift as the imaging studies from the ER are so numerous. On days we are on call, we work a full workday and then cover an additional 4 or 5 hours after the normal work day.
2. Even the ER literature reports better outcomes by utilizing special imaging studies such as abdominal CT scans. This and the fact that the ER physicians now practice “Order CT first and examine patient later” has lead to a tremendous utilization of radiology, especially CT scanning. I have tremendous respect for my ER colleagues. However, they have gravitated to a practice of overutilization of imaging studies. Imaging studies, especially CT scanning is ordered even before the ER physician examines the patient. I sit in front of a workstation for hour on hours in the middle of the night reading dozens of CTs, Ultrasounds, and plain radiographs per hour. In essence the ER physicians of today have shifted much of the diagnostic work up of an ER patient to the radiologists. We are in essence doing, much of their work. It is so much easier to order an imaging study than to take a good history, review the old charts and examine the patient. One could argue that the ER physicians have become the parasites. Often, a non physician assistant sees the patient and orders the imaging studies. I seriously doubt they are being supervised to the letter of the law and I could almost guarantee they they are out of compliance with Medicare guidelines, in essence committing fraud. In addition, the clinical information provided by the ER is totally inadequate which I can only attribute to laziness. This also is poor medicine as it leads to missed diagnoses.
3. As a radiologist, I work about 70 hours a week, reading huge volumes of studies as fast as I can. Many of these are “self pay” patients which come through the ER. Many CT studies include 300- 400 images. If you count the fact you have to look at soft tissue, lung and bone windows, many CT studies essentially have a thousand images to review. I also consult by telephone and have to do procedures on call such as performing emergency lumbar punctures from the ER because the ER physicians often don’t want to try LPs on any patient they feel difficult. Most ER physicians I know, don’t work nearly as hard as I do. Their shifts are very flexible and defined. When they go home, they are not on call.
This assumes ER physicians can ‘read’ films…
Don’t get me wrong, they can make findings relevant to a clinical presentation… Good job, keep up the good work.
Leave film ‘reading’ to the trained professional.
-TB
RADIOLOGIST SUCK, LAZY PIECES OF $HIT
It is also interesting that in the same publication that posts this distorted misinformed article accusing radiologists of fraud for not reading films contemporaneously (which rarely happens these days) posts an article under “evidence based medicine” called “Can your nurses clear C-Spines?” Talking about passing on responsibility!!
I don’t know what can of show they’re running at USC, but my group provides around the clock coverage for the hospitals and outpatient centers we cover. Weekday nights are covered by two radiologists until 10pm and one radiologist is inhouse until 6am reading all STATs (of which there are many). Four radiologists are on during the weekend, with the same night coverage.
ER docs and other clinicians are responsible for ordering way too many imaging studies and driving up the cost of health care. In fact, just the other day, the imaging work up for an inpatient whose studies I read included a brain MR, MRA of the head and neck, CTA of the head and neck, carotid US, and dedicated pituitary MR. The diagnosis was apparent in the brain MR (likely pseudotumor). All the other studies were normal. Most of the studies were ordered on the same day by the on-call neurologist who didn’t even come in to see the patient. This type of practice is disgusting to me. Not only did I waste my time reading all this worthless BS, odds are I didn’t even get paid for it. More often than not, patients at this hospital don’t have insurance.
Dr. Mallon needs to take a good look around him and see things for what they really are.
Despite any ounce of validity that may be hidden in this rant, it’s quite a challenge to read; the incessant need to spice up your commentary with hyperbole and little anecdotes about fancy cars and lattes make you sound bitter, jealous, and simply whiny, as opposed to someone with a valid complaint.
he correctly states that this article is offensive
but it is filled with lies
all films are formally read within 24 hrs of being taken and if the er has a question there is a rad on call 24/7
at usc there are on-site residents
You hit a nerve with the radiologists, Billy. Thanks for standing up for us. And, all you fellow EM docs taking the pompous “high road” should be the ones embarrassed when you KNOW deep down inside Billy is right.
dr. mallon is an asshole. he should move to russia
http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/6843291/radiology-vs-er
Dr. Mallon is clearly an idiot and should be removed from staff. He is a terrible example. He should be on a reality show or maybe Scrubs TV show. Could be a good skit!
Jealous, honey?
[b]”Poor” “LITTLE” “Billy” [/b]
I actually pity Dr Mallon. He comes across as miserable, narcissistic, dispassionate, unemotional physician with a “Napoleon” complex, which unfortunately is a common stereotype of his chosen specialty. After reading much of his extensive online drivel, it becomes quite clear he has absolutely NO compassion for patients and is only interested in furthering his Political and Entertainment career. I have trained at two of the most highly decorated(“ranked”) Medical Institutions in this country and have been exposed to several similar egos. I am positive everyone who reads this comment has as well, as they run rampant in “Academic” departments. However, “Little Billy” takes it to a new level.
Please do not be too agitated Colleagues, as we are just the latest specialty to endure his indignation.
“Billy Mallon, MD told us why children ARE small adults and started at least two riots — one involving a mob of irate pediatricians”
“Even internists are called “fleas” because that pest is usually the last to leave a corpse”
Even his colleagues are targets: “You can’t teach an old dog (AKA the ED Director) new tricks”
It seems he has chosen to follow the “Paris Hilton/Kim Kardashian” philosophy of “There is no such thing as Bad Publicity as long as they spell your name correct.”, Not to worry, after viewing his picture I can guarantee there won’t be any “videos”.
I am sure being fired from his consulting position on “ER” only further incited his Napoleon complex.
However, my favorite all time “Little Billy” quote is as follows:sad:in reference to the exceeding large expenditure on “End-of-Life” care, especially in the Emergency Department) “Bring on the death panels! I am already dressed in black and eager to participate!” Please Dear Lord don’t let me be involved in an MVA in LA!!!
Dear “Little Billy”, if you really want to drive a German Sports car and live in a gated community, the problem is not your specialty, but your location and employer. We all know academic physicians make a fraction of their private practice colleagues, but even more importantly, we know that California is one of, if not the worst states to practice medicine. Move to Texas. One of my closest friends is an ER Specialist in Dallas. He drives a black ITALIAN sports car, his wife an ENGLISH SUV, and his living room is larger than your 1850 sq ft home on 4309 San Rafeal (nice pool by the way). In Tx, $500,000 homes such as yours are considerably larger! You could even trade in that black SUV in your driveway, for a down payment on that German Sports car you so desire.
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=4309+San+Rafeal,+la&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=3070l5220l0l5443l5l5l0l0l0l0l1242l2031l3-1.1.7-1l3l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&biw=1707&bih=1006&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl
In Summary, to quote a dear friend and trusted colleague, “Wow, Appears he needs a stat KUB to find out what crawled up there and DIED! He can interpret and bill himself!!!!”
Yours sincerely,
Tx Rad, MD
Silver English sports car
6000 sf in gated community
Beach front vacation home
p.s. I read your drivel and posted this response while on one of my 14 weeks of vacation from Zurich
Mallon,
You went to medical school in Peru. You are lower than a DO, that is why you make less than half what radiologists do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3efnZc0rYDg&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Check out the above link which features “Billy”. This guy is clearly pathologically obsessed with radiologists. I hear he likes to order non-STAT IR procedures in the middle of the night and then when the radiologist rightly refuses he threatens to report them for an EMTLA violation(!) BTW, is it just me or does he sounds like the kind of guy who likes to get drunk and pick fights in bars?
Anyone look at this guy? http://www.uscdem.org/bioslist11-2/Faculty Who wears a hat in their faculty picture? Must be those parasitic plaques lurking on his calvarium. Maybe you need to see a specialist for that baldness- or prescribe your own minoxidil- or do your own hair transplant in a mirror. You obviously need no one but you- the ultimate doc.
He’s also smoking something- organic- with a Y CHROMOSOME. Get the triage nurse to order you a test for your upcoming colitis OR HEP A. You are pathetic- in look, demeanor and professionalism. You should be thrown off staff. We don’t need you indoctrinating residents with your nonsense.
The Gorgas course in tropical medicine is sponsored by UAB and UPCH (Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia) it comes in a short 1 week version or a 2 month course – see link –
http://gorgas.dom.uab.edu/index.html
William C Gorgas (1854 – 1920) was a United States Army physician and 22nd Surgeon General of the U.S. Army (1914–1918). He is best known for his work in Florida, Havana and at the Panama Canal in abating the transmission of yellow fever and malaria by controlling the mosquitoes that carry them at a time when there was considerable skepticism and opposition to such measures.
?The Gorgas Memorial Institute of Tropical and Preventive Medicine, Incorporated (GMITP), which operated the Gorgas Laboratories in Panama, was founded in 1921 and was named after Dr. Gorgas. With the loss of congressional funding in 1990, the GMITP was closed. The Institute was moved to the University of Alabama in 1992 and carries on the tradition of research, service and training in tropical medicine. The Gorgas Course in Clinical Tropical Medicine is sponsored by the University of Alabama School of Medicine in conjunction with Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Lima, Peru.
?Gorgas Hospital was a US Army hospital in Panama, previously known as Ancon Hospital and named for Dr. Gorgas in 1928. Now in Panamanian hands, it is home to the Instituto Oncologico Nacional.
?In 1953 William C. Gorgas was inducted in the Alabama Hall of Fame.
?Amelia Gayle Gorgas Library and Gorgas’ parents’ final home, the Gorgas House, located on the campus of The University of Alabama, are named in honor of the Gorgas family.
?The University of Texas Brownsville also has a Gorgas Hall in his honor. The university’s campus is located on the grounds of the former Fort Brown.
?William Crawford Gorgas Electric Generating Plant, located along the Black Warrior River near Parrish. Total nameplate generating capacity – 1,221,250 kW: Generating units – 5
?The German commercial passenger ship-cargo ship SS Prinz Sigismund, after being seized by the United States when it entered World War I on the side of the Allies, had a long American career under the name General W. C. Gorgas (named for Dr. Gorgas), including commercial service as SS General W. C. Gorgas from 1917 to 1919 and from 1919 to 1941, as the U.S. Navy troop transport USS General W. C. Gorgas in 1919, and as the U.S. Army Transport USAT General W. C. Gorgas from 1941 to 1945.
?Gorgas’s Rice Rat (Oryzomys gorgasi) is a South American rodent named after Gorgas in 1971.
?There is a Gorgas Street in the Presidio in San Francisco, California.
?1984 : Dedication of the “Major General William C. Gorgas Clinic” of the Mobile County Health Department
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es1TtaVXO2I&feature=youtu.be
[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es1TtaVXO2I&feature=youtu.be[/url]
[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es1TtaVXO2I&feature=youtu.be[/url]
As a radiologist in a practice which offers 24 hour daily contemporaneous reads, you can…go fuck yourself
I am saddened by this opinion piece. As a radiologist in a large medical center practice I work almost exclusively with ER physicians. We cover 4 large hospitals and 6 minor emergency centers in our hospital system, and we do so with 24 hour a day attending coverage. This has been the case for almost 10 years. At that time we realized the value to patient care and dispensed with our previous coverage with moonlighting residents from 2 nearby, highly competitive residency programs. We went so far as to form a “Night Section” in our practice, and I’m proud to be a part of it. In a radiology world increasingly dominated by subspecialists (including our daytime practice)the overnight radiologist give final reads within 30 minutes (typically faster) on all neuro, pedi, body, msk, plain radiographs and nucs ordered from the ER’s and MEC’s. We also are all IR trained in the Night Section and are available for stat IR cases or at least to triage for an IR backup in case the situation is too busy.
I love my ER colleagues. They LOVE us. We treat each other right and help each other every study, every day. I can’t count the number of times an ER doc has profusely thanked me for a timely read and a phone call. I can’t tell you the number of times I have thanked them for a call about a key typo on a report, or a missed finding they wanted to run by me (we aren’t perfect, no matter how good we are).
I couldn’t imagine working in any other kind of way. I’m sure the ER docs feel the same. I didn’t spend all these years training to be a professional to show up at work every night and have combative relationships with my peers.
The article does make a point that I think is missed in all the petty, inflammatory language: medicine, including radiology, is a 24 hour a day profession. There is no way around that. We recognized this long ago and I feel the patient care at our hospital system is superb because of it.
I read an extremely high volume of cases. I do so during 12 hour overnight shifts. 30,000+ studies a year. I never think about who has insurance. I never think about how much I will be paid. I never think about defensive reporting. I only try my best to contribute to the patient’s care. And I know my ER docs feel the same. And we respect each other.
Perhaps the author should consider a move to a hospital where patient care is more of a concern rather than lump radiologists into a category of parasites.
BTW, I drive a 2007 Honda Civic. Not that it matters, but, sheesh, what a small-minded and petty way to lob an undirected insult. Either Dr Mallon is really angry and using terribly poor judgement or he is not a very insightful person.
Dr Mallon, please reconsider your position. Fix it by changing the circumstances you are in. Don’t continue with this poisonous and short-sighted anger. Your situation may be less than ideal, but what intellectual professional can be fooled into thinking that the situation they are in is that of every other colleague? I mean really. It would not have taken much effort or a great leap of intellect to realize your experience is not universal. Your opinion piece just reads as an angry lashing out, and as such, seems juvenile.
36 hour ER work week. Woe is me. Woe is me.
Maybe health care cost would go down if Er docs order studies that were indicated and not just to CYA.
I dont get paid for 3/4 of the ER cases I read in my hospital. I’d be happy to walk away and let the ER docs in my hospital read all the ER cases. If people wouldnt be dying left and right, it would be a hilarious experiment.
So a year back I read a CT on someone stabbed in the chest being baby sat by a surgical resident. the ER doc did a ‘fast exam’ and said there was no pericardial effusion. the guy had the hugest effusion id ever seen from the big hole he had in his ventricle. if you wanted to be a radiologist do a radiology residency.
if you want to make more money, work more than 36 hours per month. dumbest article ive ever read
While there may be a modicum of truth to both (allbeit egregiously inflammatory) sides of this argument, it remains true that the cost of imaging studies is skyrocketing. I often will call the ED and speak to the ordering physician in regards to an acute finding- on a head CT or brain MR, or even to correlate findings with the physical exam. Many times the physician- resident or attending- has not even seen or examined that patient. Instead the study was ordered by a nurse practioner or PA under the attending of record’s name, from triage in the waiting room, having only done a truncated history and physical. If the above discussion refers to most radiology practices as “fraudulent” this practice is not too far off either. Furthermore, in my institution a stroke workup now often includes a c-spine and sometimes total spine mr exam, because the ordering physicians cannot posit a level of possible injury- and then provide reasoning such as “I don’t want to miss something” or “can you 100% rule out the possibility.” Needless to say these are not in line with ACR appropriateness criteria.
Put a surgeon, radiologist, ER doc, and IM doc in the same room and see who doesn’t think that their subspecialty works the hardest or is more deserving than the others. This is human nature. The truth is [b]we each do our [u]part[/u] in patient care[/b].
All this article proves is that Dr. Mallon was asleep during his Medical Ethics and Professionalism classes. USC should reconsider the type of physicians they chose to represent them.
BTW, I’m sure if you do a poll, most radiologists (including myself) would be happy to let an EP read their own plain films — our worst imaging modality, yet full of liability.
What an a%$hole you are. Sorry, but your article does not deserve a more intelligent response.
Wow, what a disgrace to USC? what a douch!
Fact is, most radiologists feel that too many unneeded CT’s are done each night from the ER. And do you know what? If the radiologists would read the plain films while the patients were in the ER, FEWER CT’S WOULD BE ORDERED.
while mallon brings up several good points, i certainly agree he should be censured for the nature his article. what an embarrassment to have on your fine staff! worse tho, is that epmonthly would publish an article such as this. where is your editor? asleep? this article denigrates the integrity of your magazine and makes me wonder what other biases you may be hiding.
This “opinion” is the type of inflammatory drivel that most intelligent people keep to themselves because the views are totally indefensible. Kudos to you “Doctor” Mallon for contributing to the lack of collegiality that runs rampant amongst university professors.
I object to the notion that a radiologist resident providing preliminary interpretation overnight is not being appropriately supervised. How often does an attending specialist from any field make an appearance in the ED at night to contemporaneously evaluate a patient when a consult is called at USC?
The typical academic model is for a resident to evaluate the patient. If you’re lucky, this person is a mid or upper level resident, but you often get an intern. Sometimes, this is an intern rotating onto that specialty service for a month, who has nothing at all to contribute beyond the history and exam obtained by the EM resident and/or attending. Perhaps someone will then call the attending to confirm the treatment plan, and then the attending will see the patient on the floor in the morning. That attending hasn’t interviewed or examined the patient, and is receiving filtered information at the mercy of his resident’s acumen.
Let’s imagine radiology functioning under this model… the family medicine resident rotating onto radiology reviews the CT. He looked at the pictures of appendicitis in the little radiology pocket handbook (small enough to fit into the white coat pocket along with the stethoscope), and perhaps did some google searches on “CT + appendicitis” if he’s a real go-getter. Then he showed it to the senior radiology resident for 10 seconds, who is exhausted and doesn’t want to deal with it. Finally, the phone call goes in to the attending. “Hey, we had a CT scan. It was for rule out appendicitis. I see a bunch of inflammation in the right lower quadrant, but no abscess and no free air. I’m going to call it acute appendicitis without frank rupture or abscess formation.” The attendings says, “Sounds good. Make sure you also comment on whether or not there’s an appendicolith”.
Personally, I think that academic radiology departments are already offering a MUCH higher level of service. No radiology resident below the PGY-3 level is allowed to take independent call or give preliminary readings on studies without first reviewing them with an attending or upper level resident (this is a nationwide rule). Contemporaneous final reads are given on all studies during the daytime hours and into the evening hours at most institutions. The resident is a given a little bit of autonomy and independence in the graveyard hours, with fellow and attending support (actual interpretation of the images, not just a conversation with the resident about the case) when a higher level of care is needed.
Radiology residents do a great job of providing high level interpretations on a broad range of studies. Academic radiologists focused on their specialty areas probably could not do a much better job providing readings on the full spectrum of studies ordered on ED and inpatients. The patient benefits from a solid reading by the resident, followed by an expert subspecialty level overread from the attending in the morning. As a resident, a fellow, and as faculty, I have seen many patients transferred in with outside imaging that was blatantly misinterpreted by board-certified radiologists reading outside of their comfort zone. The idea of 24/7 final reads by board certified radiologists as a panacea is misguided. The only indisputable benefit is fewer callbacks. I doubt that it will produce better outcomes.
Any notion that patients are being served worse by the academic model of radiology than by the academic model of any other specialty is based on availability bias. When there is a discrepant interpretation on an imaging study, the ED gets a phone call from radiology and it sticks in your head. When there is an incorrect clinical assessment by a resident, the management gets changed on the floor and you never hear about it. If you do find out about it, it’s billed as “new symptoms” or “clinical deterioration”. The dirty laundry is kept hidden, and problems are dealt with internally.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es1TtaVXO2I&feature=related
While I’d like to get paid for reading plain Xray films, and I think I am reasonably good at it, and enjoy it, I don’t want the extra liability that goes with a final reading of a plain film. And occasionally the radiologist picks up stuff we miss- and all of my colleagues at our hospital are better docs than I am, honestly.
What continues to bother me about Mr. Mallon’s article (I’ve accorded myself the privilege of demoting him, since he’s not acting as a professional ought to act) is the venomous tone, the deliberate inaccuracies, and the idea that somehow we are competing with radiology. That’s not the case. We are supposed to be on the same side, but you wouldn’t know it to read Mr. Mallon.
He’s smart, though; if he’d mentioned a particular physician, he’d be (deservedly) sued for slander and end up penniless. As it is, he’s slandered an entire group of our profession, and it’s unlikely he’ll be sued by them. Too bad. Mr. Mallon cap-in-hand would be an appropriate sight.
It’s a shame a physician like this- big mouth, poisonous attitude, happy to distort things to make what he imagines to be his point of view- is teaching developing physicians. That is worrisome to me- impressionable minds in medicine are listening to this fellow. That, to me, is the worst part of the whole exchange- that he’ll create others like him. Exactly what we don’t need, IMHO.
My group reads 100% of imaging studies at all hours, 24/7.
We have a typewritten subspecialist-read final report issued before the ED even has time to look at the exam, within minutes of exam completion.
So instead of having to issue a bunch of corrections for missed findings from the ED physician, the ED physician never has a chance to demonstrate their lack of training in sophisticated image interpretation.
Dr. Mallon, I am happy to pit the speed and accuracy of my group against you any day. Put your money where your mouth is.
I feel I could do fairly well as an ED physician with my level of training. But I don’t bother because I am not as well trained as you are. Your dabbling in my specialty is similar. If you want to be a radiologist, do a 5-year residency and get board certified.
It would be interesting to know where Mr. Mallon grew up, and why he attended medical school in Peru, if he’s practicing here. Care to enlighten us?
I don’t understand why so many radiologist are getting so offended by this. If you don’t like the comments then take charge of your career and come in and read the films as they are taken. Our rads won’t even read films when they are here. The “am” rad reads them the next day. How embarassing for your profession. I won’t even mention what nighthawk and VRC has done to the profession. Must be nice to sleep at night and play all weekend. I wish I had that luxury, but I give up 50% of my weekends and holidays so I can staff the ER and take care of patients and of coarse read your films that you will bill the patient for all sitting at home watching football enjoying time with your family.
“It’s better to be silent and thought a fool, than to speak up and remove all doubt.”
Most of the ignorant will remain silent out of self presevation. Dr. Mallon you foolishness is only out matched by your arrogance.
I am insulted by Mallon’s claim that we all drive “black German cars”.
I prefer orange Italian cars.
…multifactorial. The federal government sets our reimbursement and private insurers follow suit so this leads to animosity between specialties as those with the best lobbyists get the best pay. We have, necessarily due to the vast fund of knowledge, become so subspecialized as physicians that a tribe mentality has naturally developed and we fight with each other for scraps from the third party’s table. As far as value and price… A true free market would settle the value of services provided. The patient and their families would determine the value of our services. New industries such as medical consultant paid by families and patients would develop. The third party payer system has perverted this concept beyond recognition as patients and physicians have lost the concept of true cost in the delivery of care. I have seen many unindicated advanced imaging studies ordered based solely on patient desire. The ordering doc tries to dissuade the patient but to no avail. Why should taxpayers and/or members of an insurance group be forced to pay this fee? Why should the radiologist risk not getting reimbursed for his labor? Why should the hospital or imaging center be denied the technical fee? If the patient is willing to pay out of pocket for an ultrasound on unenhanced MRI which essentially have no risk, then so be it. We as physicians and patients should discuss and be more aware of these costs and make more fiscally sound management decisions. Better (loser pays) tort reform, scaled back third party payment systems (not decreased reimbusement), and a truly free market would sort this out. GOVERNMENT MANDATES…FREE MARKETS INNOVATE!
For those who would suggest that the poor would suffer. I would point out the charity hospitals and how they have suffered from the third party system. Never mind the moral hazard that a third party payment system creates. Also, how many of us have been guilty of gaining the system for profit since the cost is spread out? Would we do the same if the sweet little old lady had to pay out of pocket or burden her family? How many of us would gladly donate time and services rather than getting angry when the indigent present since we know they have no third party payer? Think of our dentist and orthodontist friends who have fee for service practices and how happy they seem. If we are not careful, BIG BROTHER will co-opt us all and socialized medicine will be our lot. We need to work together and quit fighting over our piece of the pie before the government decides to send us to bed without dessert!
Tell ya what there Dr. Rocket Scientist: If you can get your precious “contemporaneous reads” past your administration, malpractice carriers and the medical board in California, you might have a snowballs chance of being able to bill for them. But as long as you guys insist on me finding the lung cancers and fractures that you guys keep missing, I’m pretty sure that that isn’t going to happen.
1. This type of infighting is what will tear medicine and patient care to shreds
2. If Dr. Mallon has such a problem with his radiologists, he should report them to USC officials for reprimand.
3. From what I hear from ED MD friends, the radiologists are the least of the ED docs’ worries. In fact they tell me that radiology is one of the quickest responding specialties at our hospital.
4. Most radiology practices would happily give up plain film reads from the ED. They take time to read, increase liability, and are the largest source of nonpay care for most groups.
5. Radiologists are not paid to diagnose broken bones only; my 7 year old can do that. Radiologists are paid to find subtleties that other docs are not trained to see and are not looking for.
6. It is unfortunate that Dr. Millon has taken such a vitriolic tone and thrown out accusations of fraud. Were I a member of the USC radiology department, I may investigate a claim of libel against him.
7. ED docs have a glamourless job; but, it is a volunteer army. If Dr. Millon is so miserable, he should find another line of work.
8. None of this fighting will benefit anyone. The unfortunate truth is that nonessential elective services (plastic surgery, dentistry, entertainment) are where people want to put their money. Until a value is put on essentials rather than electives, this won’t get any better. Accusations of fraud only exacerbate the problem, though. An apology is in order here.
This journal should be wiped out of existence for publishing this rubbish, and this Mallon character needs to be fired for the damage he has done to his specialty and department.
welcome to MY world:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjjrSYFmVYg&feature=youtube_gdata_player
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjjrSYFmVYg&feature=youtube_gdata_player
welcome to MY world:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjjrSYFmVYg&feature=youtube_gdata_player
…if you agree, join this facebook page “USC – terminate Dr. Mallon”
and send a message to USC, that we don’t want or need this element in our profession.
As a clinician ER attending with ID background our specialty has a lot to offer to our patients, let’s focus on patient care Dr Mallon.
The Gorgas Diploma course, 2 months in Lima and Iquitos Peru I took last year was fantastic. I wonder if you took that course or only the one week in Lima, please explain us
http://gorgas.dom.uab.edu/
http://gorgas.dom.uab.edu/
There are many things that bother each of us about specialties that are not our own. While each of feels that OUR OWN specialty is superior to those paths not taken, such is the reason why we each chose our respective careers. At one point in time, we were all brothers-in-arms fighting shoulder to shoulder through the battles of medical school. To publish such a childish rant in this public forum simply further serves to demonstrate the author’s personal level of UN-professionalism. This is precisely why insurance companies and lawyers have targeted physicians with such great success for decades; this level of childish contempt for your very own colleagues makes all of us easy prey. To discuss your concerns within your institution is one thing, but to present your immature and contemptuous dirty laundry in such a public forum is reprehensible. Shame on this author for such a poor use of the written word, and shame on this publication for providing the soap-box and bull-horn.
There are many things that bother each of us about specialties that are not our own. While each of feels that OUR OWN specialty is superior to those paths not taken, such is the reason why we each chose our respective careers. At one point in time, we were all brothers-in-arms fighting shoulder to shoulder through the battles of medical school. To publish such a childish rant in this public forum simply further serves to demonstrate the author’s personal level of UN-professionalism. This is precisely why insurance companies and lawyers have targeted physicians with such great success for decades; this level of childish contempt for your very own colleagues makes all of us easy prey. To discuss your concerns within your institution is one thing, but to present your immature and contemptuous dirty laundry in such a public forum is reprehensible. Shame on this author for such a poor use of the written word, and shame on this publication for providing the soap-box and bull-horn.
Honestly, Dr. Mallon just comes off very pathetic in this hit job of an opinion piece that seems entirely based on greed, ignorance and jealousy. If these “expert” ED physicians want to accept the liability for all the ED “plain” films performed everyday, I would say go for it except for the fact that patient care would be affected in a negative way. But Mallon seems less concerned about patients than a few dollars.
1. You have no idea how hard we work
2. Read at the pace we have to read at, and accept all the liability please.
3. Most of us train for 6 years after medical school and have huge debt. If there are German cars! It’s after years of work. Like any other physician.
4. Only Radiologists drink lattes???
Fact: i was called at 2am this morning by a senior ER doc ( xray was taken 3 hours prior) on an 18 year old with, what she called a slightly displaced ulnar shaft fracture. I told her this is rarely operative and to splint it and send it out. Luckily I checked the films before I got off the phone…it was a radius fracture and probably needs surgery. REALLY??? Can’t tell radius vs ulna? My kid do that. She went on to order a CT for some reason….now the radiologist has to read an unnecessary study and an 18yo male got a ton more radiation than necessary. Pardon me, but this dumb bone doc will continue trusting my own or radiologist reads!
I’ve always wondered why radiologists get paid more for reading a film days later than I get for seeing the patient, treating them and reading the xray myself!
I’ve also had to call up radiologists after their days later read and say ” So you think that subdural bleed was Normal? The one the neurosurgeon took staright to the OR ?” or ” So you consider that bullet in his parietal lobe to be “Normal”?”
I say whoever reads it first should be the only one to get paid.
An article like this is not meant to be taken seriously. It is provocative. It is meant to start a discussion. ED medicine is the toughest practice extant. ER doctors get nothing but patients who fail to tell the truth, actively pursue non medical agendas, and are willing to sue at the drop of a hat. They have high level hospital administrators screaming at them to admit more and payors who scream at them to admit less. They have low level hospital administrators screaming at them to wash their hands, chart more, visit the patients more, use medications in only certain ways, use absurd procedures to adhere to supposed JCAHO guidelines. The list goes on. I cannot imagine the courage they come up with just to walk in the door for their shifts. If one of them wants to blow off steam about radiologists, hard to get too excited.
as a practicing EM physician, also at a large academic institution, it is important to acknolwedge that there is an important relationship between EM and radiology. at the end of the night, it is not the ego that matters, but what is best for patient care. as a bedside clinician, i have the responsbility and acumen to assure that i order labs tests and radiographic as best for my patient. to those EM physicians who believe such a relationship is parasitic, i ask you, including dr mallon, to reevaluate the importance of such a relationship. to those radiologists who target the speciality in reposnse to this article, i state grow up and act like the professionals that you may be.
i think most will agree that the article was inlammatory and unfair. while the article does make an important point (regarding clinical worth and immediate versus delayed diagnosis) most radiologist, and em phsycians for that matter, will have a difficult time reading past the inflammatory remarks. after the fire settles, perhaps think about the point of the article and not how it was written.
dr mallon plays an important role in the EM community and his opinion is much valued. he above article represents an opinion, not the rule.
before posting, take a cold shower, sit in a dark room, and let’s together continue to improve the medical system, the spiraling costs of healthcare, and patient care as opposed to setting it back with an above such article or above such comments.
This is out of control. Each above should be criticized for what they’ve posted. Where is the sense here? We represent a community of professionals, not money hungry children. What a waste of time.
To EM, grow up. Dr. Mallon, this article was unfair and inflammatory.
To Radiology, I imagine this flew around your listserve hence the comments. Each post is childish and can / should be reported.
For example:
TXrad – ‘USC should reconsider the type of physicians they chose to represent them’ – unnecessary and not up to you. USC represents a strong group of EM physicians with a growing EM radiology relationship. I would write such a comment about you to your Hospital board.
Speechless – ‘not in line with ACR appropriateness criteria’ -I ask you, go work in an ER. if youre so convinced, go see the patient yourself. It is not up to you to make such a judgement. All agree that the specialities have been created for a reason, not to be judged by you.
KCrad – ‘I am familiar with ED competency levels of image interpretation’ – A blanket statement, unfair, and should be reported. Two wrongs do not make a right. Such a comment if really believed, should be sent to your EM group and not such a forum. Do what is best for your patient, not for your group.
This list goes on and on. This is the last few. Those of you posted, reread the irresponsibiltiy of your posting, and Dr. Mallon, you are urged to do the same.
Sir, with all do respect, you may be able to use some professional help to manage your anger and persue a healthier life style and maybe a more suitable, less stressful profession.
Insulting in such a language clearly is not coming out of a “legally competant” person, therefore I also urge the administration of your hospital to re-consider certain issues and also get the risk managment involved.
Clearly we have an excellent, rock-solid professional relationship between EM and Rad Dept and would never ever let anyone with any such eratic thought process gets between us. Strength is in working together rather than against each other.
Sincerely, Bijan
I am an MD, and NOT a radiologist nor an ER doc, and therefore impartial to either field. TO THOSE READING THIS ARTICLE WHO ARE NOT IN THE MEDICAL FIELD, KEEP IN MIND THIS IS JUST THE OPINION OF ONE DOC AND NOTHING ELSE. I personally find this article both wrong and absolutely despicable. First off, as MDs, these kind of grievances should be aired out behind closed doors, and not in public. This article gives the public absolutely the wrong idea and hurts all doctors. In an environment where parasites of the JD species are already trying to make MDs look bad, we do not need to do so ourselves. SHAME SHAME SHAME on this doc, who has been in practice 20 years and should know better, he should be fired!
In terms of his statements, they are absolutely false. There is such a thing as CALL, which doctors have been taking, for ohh, say, probably 100 years. An attending radiologist is always available within minutes. And, in the COMMUNITY hospitals where there is no radiologist in-house, they are always available by pager. This is not true at an academic center, where staff is even more readily available. And, there is no such thing as Radiologists strolling in at 9AM, coffee in hand to read studies that are days old. Studies are read out every morning, 7 days/week. And if there are concerning findings that may have been missed by your undiscerning eye (Dr. Mallon), the ER doc will be paged and at worst, the patient can be contacted right away.
There is already a health crises going on. Please do not create another one Dr. Mallon. In terms of salary, ER docs are not far off from Radiologists. If that is all your are concerned about, perhaps you shouldn’t be working at USC any longer.
Well, and necessarily said, Dr. Mallon.
20 years of civil discourse with radiologists has gotten us nowhere. A little flame now might actually bring light. Dr. Mallon is right that unless CMS threatens to take away the money if readings aren’t done to benefit the patient, radiologists will not do the right thing on behalf of the patient.
Want proof? Just read what they say.
In 1993, the OIG said after-care reads should not be paid for; they’re not patient care, they’re Q/A, and that’s already been paid to the hospital in the DRG rate. You want money for Q/A, go talk to your hospital administrator, was CMS’s (then HCFA’s) point. The flame-throwing in the ACR’s response is actually enlightening to this discussion, I think.
Here’s what they said in a letter to the Agency after the OIG study was published (Gary Price letter to Tom Ault, Deputy Director, Bureau of Policy, 1/14/1994). The hypocrisy is remarkable. “It is important that the long-standing tenant in the Medicare program be recognized: the physician who performs the service should… be paid for the service.” God forbid that we radiologists might actually have to perform a service that we can’t get paid for. Welcome to emergency medicine, boys. This is where we live every day.
Then, they turn ugly and conclude their 7 pages of accusations that emergency physicians are incompetent with this gem: If you stop paying us, this “would halt the interpretation of emergency department x-rays by expert radiologists… A substantial number of abnormalities would go undetected daily, resulting in unnecessary pain and suffering and unnecessary loss of perhaps hundreds of lives each year. ” ACR letter, page 7.
So, I can’t conclude that Dr. Mallon is saying anything other than the American College of Radiology has already said. For them, it’s all about the money, not the patient. Unless we advocate for taking the money away if the patient care is compromised, we won’t see timely, reliable (not second guessing two days later when they change their mind about the stat read they never documented) interpretive services from the “experts”.
Emergency physicians work in a fishbowl, everybody gets to second guess your decisions. That goes with the territory. But, taking your money to tell you you’re wrong is just a little much. Thank you, Billy, for pointing this out.
If your intent was to sound like another “Rush Limbaugh”, you’ve probably succeeded. Like so many have already stated here (and very eloquently), quit whining, go do another residency and get your Porsche or whatever you fancy.
Hey if you guys are pooling money to buy him a car can you put in a little extra for me? I’m an attending radiologist 4 years out of training, working at a VA hospital. I drive a beat up puke green 1997 Honda Accord that just got a used $800 transmission put in to replace the old leaking one. Some of the door locks dont work. Im pretty sure the AC is releasing toxic chemicals into the cabin. My kids have spilled milk and god knows what else in the back seat. I would really like an Aston Martin but to be honest anything less than 10 years old will do, preferably with an airbag, anti-lock brakes, and latches for the carseats.
Please though, buy this guy a car first it seems very important to him.
Is he besties with Rupert???
Where exactly are radiologists reading the films “Days later” I’ve worked at numerous institutions and have never seen this. I asked many radiologists I know and have never seen this.
Are you in a rural area? There may only be 1 radiologist in that particular county
We read all studies (ER, Inpatient, and Outpatient) contemporaneously with a short-term around time. Sounds like you guys need better radiologists.
to EPbiller: you state: “God forbid that we radiologists might actually have to perform a service that we can’t get paid for. Welcome to emergency medicine, boys. This is where we live every day.” Listen, idiot–if you don’t get paid for a patient’s care, we don’t get paid for the whole body CT scan you inevitably order (and which is read contemporaneously). Jerk. We are not responsible for your career choice errors.
I am a PA that works with the now infamous ‘DR’ Mallon.
I too have an issue with reimbursement, and my fair piece of the pie. We (PAs and NPs) do just as much, if not more work than the ED attendings. We work the same shifts and total hours, for 1/3 of the pay.
I can order X-rays and consult specialists just as well as the next guy…why can’t I get similar pay? Sure I don’t have an MD, and assume less liability, but why can’t I make 2/3 of the pay for the same work!?
In fact, as you can see in most hospitals as in ours at USC, a majority of the ED staff are mid-levels, like myself. Why? Honestly, because most of the ED work is pretty easy (off meds, colds, fractures, drug-seekers, psych) and the rest is algorithm based.
Trauma=CT scan; negative-discharge, positive-admit
Chest Pain=EKG/Enzymes +/- PE study; negative-discharge, positive-admit
“Bad” Headache=CT scan; negative-discharge, positive-admit
Abdominal Pain=CT scan/labs; negative-discharge, positive-admit
Pelvic Pain=US/labs; negative-discharge, positive-admit
Plus we are taught by the ED attendings to read our own Xrays and do our own Ultrasounds. Most of the time its just, “no acute” or “fracture, no fracture,” but, still, I am the one looking at it real-time–so, show me the money!!!
I am doing the work–not the ED attending (PGY-4), not the blood-sucking radiology resident/fellow (PGY-5/6), not the absentee/out-of hospital surgery, cardiology or critical care attendings!!!
ME, me, ME!! That’s why we all went into the healthcare field right, DR Mallon–$$$$$$$
The article starts off with the extremist tone characteristic of a satirical article. Oh except as I kept reading, it never got funny.
This guy seems to be way too emotional to make any point that am audience could take seriously, which leads me to question–
When exactly was it that you caught your wife nailing a radiologist?
What an embarrassment to Keck.
Oh yeah, and like many people have said above–my Audi is silver (but my parents bought that for me before I landed my residency).
thanks, nightrad, your perspective is appreciated. i think Dr Mallon crossed the line trying to be provocative/funny, but many of the responses were even more destructive to our delicate interspecialty relationship. to the pissy PA, i am aghast at your attitude. can’t even begin to tell you what’s wrong with the way you think. you are unfixable and certainly not worthy of assisting any physician. please do the right thing and out yourself to Dr. Mallon so he knows he is working with an enemy. i am so glad we don’t have PAs in our ED. you should be ashamed of yourself.
I dont have anything else to say….its too late for this guy to change his speciality. He is jealous and burning his ass off. Nothing else.
Doesnt even realise he sounds hungry for money? I am amazed he could not find a single normal Radiologist…
Bad luck
Dr. Mallon,
I’m a Neuroradiologist. In our practice, we work 15 – 22 shifts a month, including days, nights, and weekends, and our shifts are 10 – 12 hours. We are also on home pager call for emergent procedures. For what it’s worth, this is why I make more money than my friends who are Emergency Physicians, and work 12 8 hour shifts per month. Nevertheless, they, too, drive German luxury cars. But more importantly, they love their jobs, and I love mine. We both perform an invaluable service for the patients, and even more so when we work together. My EP colleagues appreciate and respect my presence, an I appreciate and respect theirs. I’m sorry for your that many of these concepts are lost on you, and that you chose to use insults and hyperbole to be divisive.
This about sums it up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es1TtaVXO2I&feature=related
Hey ED PA- go to med school and stop whining if you want doctor’s pay.
Here, maybe you could follow this formula
Medical school+internship+residency+ fellowship =doctor= doctor salAry. Go to med school Sherlock
What’s up Willie? Could you not get into a US school? Having trained in both specialties I feel I am qualified to make a judgement here. You see patients. Order a bunch of tests and then expect someone else to make the diagnosis.
Peace Dr. FMG
hmmm…I think its interesting how many radiologists are mis-interpreting the argument. Dr. Mallon’s point is that radiology (in some hospitals) will bill for films after they have been read and acted upon. Which is fraud, and useless. I love my radiologist and nighthawk that is available 24/7 and gets me reads in 30 minutes, even on higher level studies. I don’t like the one that calls me the next day with a final read…thanks for nothing, that would have been useful when the patient was in the hospital.
I don’t know what rads schedule is like, but if a hospital is ordering films 24/7 then coverage should accommodate on the weekend for final reads. I
Everyone just take a deep breath and relax. Dr. Mallon has managed to transform a serious issue into a cat fight, no better than a screaming match on daytime talk shows. His opinion is insulting and juvenile. Responding in kind is equally unprofessional.
Every specialty has it’s own pet peeves and often targets another specialty as a source of aggrevation. Have we all forgotten that at one time we all went through medical school with high ideals and a pledge to improve society? We need to strive together as a team to help our patients, not stab each other in the back.
Several People Here are the Problem:
You didn’t go to IU and Louisville for residency did you?
The residency system was meant to deliver medicine from the “just wing it” era to something…a little more scientifically rigorous. Right?
The real inevitability is an American medical system dummied down by mindless algorithmic decision-making, fraught with carbetbaggers, confounded by an ever-expanding community of alternative medical “providers,” strangled by bean-counters, and crippled by government bureacracy– all inadvertently delivered to the public by self-destructive, self-promoting physicians who just can’t seem to agree on anything, i.e. “disorganized” medicine.
A future where ER physicians and hospitalists are largely replaced by midlevels is certainly conceivable (by bean-counters and bureacrats), although almost certainly not advisable. Unfortunately for the above excitable, disgruntled, hardworking PA, his/her salary will likely drop, not increase thereafter.
back to the grind.
As a medicine physician who takes frequent overnight call, I often get called at 1AM on a given weekday/weekend to confirm placement of a central line, NG tube, r/o PTX, etc. Since there is no radiologist there at night, I’m forced to look at the CXR and decide what to do, despite having not a whole lot of confidence in my radiology abilities. I never went to radiology residency and will be the first to defer such expertise to the qualified physicians that spent 5 years of residency training learning to properly read a CXR (vs my haphazard, non-comprehensive approach). This is why I sort of agree with the article — why isn’t there a radiologist on during the nights to make these reads? I’m the one that gets screwed if the central is actually in the right ventricle or the NGT is actually tracheal and I’ve already ok’d IV infusion or tube feeds. Now I’m sure the radiologists reading are probably thinking “what idiot can’t tell proper placement of such things?”, but if you think it’s so easy to read these things, then why do you keep insisting it takes so much expertise and that we shouldn’t be reading them alone? Basically, I think every hospital should have at least 1 attending radiologist on call during the nights (my hospital certainly doesn’t) to read images as they come (vs 10 hours later after clinical decisions have already been made).
Of note, I do think it is very ironic that ED physicians are bitching to radiologists about not working enough. You guys are triage docs that work 40 hrs a week, and you’re giving radiologists a hard time? Gimme a break! Stop ordering CT scans for everybody with a cough, and maybe you wouldn’t need to rely on radiologists that heavily.
@red-
Studies finalized after overnight preliminary is NOT fraudulent. This has been been clarified by CMS. It is exactly this allegation that Dr. Mallon makes which is wholly incorrect and that you are trying to perpetuate.
You and Dr. Mallon are both wrong. (at least you weren’t a d*bag in the way you made your point though)
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
–John Dunne
Dr. Mallon,
As a practicing ER doctor who went back into residency to become a radiologist I can honestly say that you have everything backwards.
Please walk a mile in a man’s shoes before you criticize. Undergo a radiology residency, do a radiology fellowship, and practice a few years as a radiologist.
You will realize that radiologists actually think when they work (unlike Emergency medicine where it is all binary decisions that are algorithm based) and that radiologists are true specialists who also happen to work longer hours than a trenchworking ER doctor.
Walk both sides of the fence, only then can you criticize either side.
Obviously, Dr. Mallon has chosen the 21st Century model for personal success in America – shock value and celebrity over substance. It’s sad to see the aesthetic of Jersey Shore and The Kardashians make its way into Medicine like the smell of garbage coming in through a open window, but I suppose it was only a matter of time. Congratulation, Dr. Mallon! Mission accomplished! Everyone in both specialites now knows your name! I suppose the reason for that is not nearly as important to you. Cheers! P.S. You’re a petty little man who would most likely be bitter no matter what your circumstances. Seek therapy, or do you have something to say about psychiatrists too?
Radiologists, myself included, don’t usually read EP monthly, but was alerted to this for comic relief after working 7 straight days and taking angio call all seven nights in between.
First, Mallon is right that studies should be read immediately, and most respectable places do that. More importantly, it should be read correctly by those who possess the most expertise in order to justify the expense. In fact, most places now have dedicated subspecialty trained radiologists reading only in their area of expertise, many of whom provide it 24/7/365. If this arrogant douche thinks he can be better reading a few films in between shuffling patients through the ED than someone doing it all day, every day, after extensive training, then this institution of supposed higher education has more problems than who gets paid for unnecessary studies being ordered by insecure ED docs failing to perform their role properly. Maybe that’s why the number of ultrasounds requested to characterize a “mass” after the ED doc has scanned the patient with ultrasound is going up. They have very little clue what they are looking at, but can perform and charge for it- talk about parasitizing the patient and insurance companies. I know very little of this publication, but after this incident of poor judgement by the editor,(perhap a desperate attempt to get attention with sensationalistic headlines instead of substance) it now ranks right between the National Enquirer and Star. Strong work guys, is there an adult supervising these clowns running amok?
Dr.Mellon reminds me of Rodney Dangerfield:
” No respect ,I’ll tell you, no respect”
The accusatory comments written by Dr. Mallon border on slander. I work in a radiology practice that provides 24/7/365 coverage. I drive a Honda truck and have parked next to a number of those German cars owned by physicians who are not radiologists. I often wondered how they could afford those.
As for Dr. Alost who claims that he reads all of the CT, MRI and US studies that he orders, the most dangerous physician is the one who thinks he knows everything. I don’t know of any self respecting surgeon who would operate on a patient based on the interpretation of a cross sectional imaging study by an ED physician.
I also doubt that the radiologists responding to this article actually read this periodical.
For 22 years I have been the slave to inept ER physicians who are unable, too lazy, or claim “uncertified” to do on call lumbar punctures, paracentesis, and thoracentesis on their patients. They call me to place a pigtail catheter for spontaneous pneumothorax or place a PICC line because they can’t or wont place a cental line. Attempts to train ER docs to learn how to use imaging to do these rudimentary procedures go rebuffed every year. CT utilization grows each year as triage nurses and extenders get regional CT studies before a physician has seen the patient. Radiology groups pay for night teleradiology readings that benefit the ER doc. Uninsured patients cost radiologists and hospitals multiples that they cost ER docs. Dr Mallon should return to the parasites he knows best in Peru. At least he could relate to his own kind.
Dr Mallon–I cannot speak to your situation, but where I work the radiologists are reading all of the cross sectional and ultrasound exams as they happen, plain films are etiher read as they happen or at the very latest the next AM. I would agree that if indeed films are not being read for a day or two later, that is not an ideal situation. Your inflammatory blog is not going to help however.
You sound like a jack of all trades–are you board certified in radiology? Why hasn’t your hodpital credentialed you to give final reads on radiology exams? Are you involved in radiology peer review? Are you involved in a maintanece of certification process in radiology. How about a practice quality improvement project? How much radiation was your patient exposed to during that chest x ray or CT, and what are the risks to that patient down the road? How do you follow up a 4mm chest nodule or an 8 mm nodule for that matter? Is that a lung carcimoma or is that just scar tissue? Just wondering, and oh by the way–you just missed that posterior mediastinal mass…
I have spent 45 minutes reading all of these comments on a plane (Virgin America wifi).
Half of these comments were unnecessary. All of you radiologists who work ay 24/7/365 locales, Dr Mallon praises you if you could read between the lines here. He is on your side. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. You are actually CONTRIBUTING to the timely deliverance of emergent medical care. That’s all he is asking for.
The other group who are NOT 24/7/365 are the ones who are potentially committing fraud and stealing from the government and insurers by charging for and representing themselves as having taken part in this delivery of EMERGENT HEALTH CARE. And you know it.
This is some precious material. My stomach actually hurts from laughing from reading these hate filled comments that are mostly irrelevent to the arguement. As the last person wrote, Billy is commenting on a particular behavior/attitude exhibited by SOME radiologists or radiologist groups.
Here are two more problem I have with some (however in my experience all) radiologists. ER doctor A gets a chest xray and reads it negative. Radiologist comes to work the next day, presumably with Latte in hand, and over reads the xray as showing a “suspicious mass, follow up recommended”. Here is where it gets awesome. Radiologist then writes this on a piece of paper and has it sent to ER doctor B (usually me) who has never seen the patient to follow it up. Now if I read most of the above comments correctly Radiologists are unbelievably clinically astute (much more so than us glorified triage nurses), so why doesn’t this radiologist who thinks he sees something call the patient up? How is Er Doc B any more qualified or prepared to address this new information? Does not a radiologist go to medical school? I guess that might require time out of your revenue generating reading session and we all know that T-times are hard to get.
A radiologist is just as qualified to look into a patient’s chart and contact that patient if necessary because of HIS finding on xray as the person who just happens to be working the ER the next day; more so actually since the radiologist is actually involved in the care!
Problem #2 with our current relationship with radiology. When I order a plain film, I look at it and interpret it and write it down in my note. Then I am supposed to walk to another part of the ER as some point in my “free time” and reread my xray in a computer so that it is convenient for the Radiologist to see what I though the xray showed when he sees it the next day. Dude, you are sitting in a quiet room all day while we are running around managing patients in a chaotic environment for 12 straight hours. Would it be that hard to have your staff pull our charts to get our readings.
I have worked with some great Radiologists in the last 10 years. Ones that are always available and professional and very very helpful. Team members and invaluable. Willing to make a reading without saying “clinical coorelation” at the end of every reading. Radiologists that actually call me and ask for the story while they are reading to help us both take care of patients.
I have also worked with radiologists that clearly want nothing to do with anything clinical. Who think they have some sort of right to be able to have everyone around them work to make their lives eaiser. They can’t imagine doing a follow up that they would be most appropriate for and throw a tantrum if everything isin’t organized perfectly for them so they only have to get out of the chair for latte refills and bathroom breaks. They wont read an appendix without contrast even though their own literature has shown over and over that it isin’t needed. These are the parasites that piss ER doctors off. And the more they take, the worse off this relationship will become.
I am an NP (Ph.D) who has 19 years in ED’s. I do agree with the PA who responded (1/3 pay). Yes,we are responsible for the care we give our patients and yes we do read and interpret our own x-rays prior to them being read. At times, I will admit radiologists has missed a few simple fx’s and foreign bodies. On occasion, I have called the radiologist to inform them of their missed call and I have never been disrespectful and occasionally have recieved a thank you. I do have to laught as it appears it is a universal statement in the replies “MRI recommended or Clinical Correlation). It always appears to me that my validity of my cases outweight the added comments of “clinical correlation”.
To conclude Dr Mallon makes his point that has opened many an eye with thoughts and frustrations kept “secret” in our minds. This is a peer related journal, so lets look at the statements and grow from them, respect all, and move on. Medicine only hurts itself when egos have to be heard and there were more than enough “egos” expressing themselves here.
I must admit i too am amazed at how many radiologists read this magazine!!
Billy was a little harsh but raises a good point; the disparate and illogical pay in our healthcare system. I love the comment in one of the letters about radiologists not calling their own follow up- good point. Our community hospital has a good rad system and 24 hour nighthawk as back up- so i am satisfied. That a radiologist gets paid more than i do (as an ED doc) however is a real pisser. But, i am doing pretty well and so hope we can all unite and work together to improve this health care system that is really a pathetic mess
I read the article published in your journal and as a radiologist I would like to make a few comments.
At our hospital we have radiologist coverage for our colleagues including the ED 24/7 and read all imaging studies performed. Our average turnaround time for ED and STAT cases is typically under one hour from the time a study is completed. These results are published at quarterly medical staff meetings for all departments to review. I am always proud of our department with these results compared to the average patient waiting times in the ED that can range from 2 – 4 hours, on a good day for a patient to see some kind of health care provider, often times not the ED physician.
The radiology department enjoys a close relationship with the ED and we often work together to adjust our schedules to provide immediate imaging for patients deemed more STAT than the typical STAT cases from the ED that often have no significant findings and often have not been evaluated by any doctor. I could throw stones back at the ED author of this article noting the many ultrasound exams we have performed to rule out cholecystitis only to find that the gallbladder was removed years prior, or the numerous CT scans we perform to rule out intracranial bleed that are rarely positive however in the spirit of improving patient care, which I would think this magazine is dedicated to as well as to the physicians reading this, I will not expand this list that could be several pages long.
Currently we have experienced recent attempts by ED physicians to perform ultrasound themselves claiming they have some type of training in imaging modalities to make diagnoses, only to miss obvious findings such as raging cholecystitis that have resulted in near patient deaths. Clearly with radiology ultrasound techs in the hospital and board certified radiologists to read the exams, one might look at this as an attempt for ED physicians to make money for themselves while putting patients at risk who come to the hospital looking for help rather than encountering a greedy ED doctor looking to enhance RVUs and personal revenue.
We as radiologists are thoughtful and do not criticize our busy ED or other referring physician colleagues when they come to our department to check on the results of a CT scan of a patient they have been assigned to care for and have ordered cross sectional imaging without seeing or examining them thus exposing these patients to ionizing radiation without any physician interaction. As radiologists we understand that now in today’s environment it is the radiologist who actually performs the “first” physical exam.
It seems to me from this article that the author’s frustration would be better directed at the ED leadership in his own hospital or at hospital administration, who frankly routinely make much more than the radiologists in salary and bonuses that seem to allow imaging studies to be performed and or interpreted by non board certified radiologists 24/7. This policy I would suspect would increase patient errors as well as hospital liabilities and it amazes me that this physician would not mention this or address this in the article.
In summary we are all there for the patient 24/7, and if this is not the case then hospital policy needs to be reviewed critically rather than write an irresponsible commentary.
A few points
1. Ed studies are the lowest reimbursement cases of all. As radiologists we provide free for service on Ed reads.
2. Most practices where size allows provide 24/7 radiology coverage or go deep into night with only a few hours overnight uncovered when volumes are too low to justify such coverage in most places.
3. Radiology is a constant high alert practice where we focus and work with high intensity for hours at a time to the point most of us cannot think straight when we leave the hospital we are so beat up. To try to read a study or studies with thousands of images cumulative over the course of a day is ridiculously mentally fatiguing. I have done 90-120 hour weeks when interventional got busy but I get much more tired after a 50 hour read week. It is easy to look at studies when you do not have to take responsibility for everything on the study but when you sign off as final reader you look at everything And it is tiring. You cannot safely read in this mode more than 6-7 hours a day but most of us put in quite a bit more than that.
4. Majority of Ed x-rays are either normal or obvious. Only a small percent have findings that are subtle but critical to make either in the acute setting or longterm. Radiology’s value added is in such situations where we intensely interrogate the image in a way in which a busy Ed doc will never be able to. Means we pick up on the small treatable cancer which our Ed colleagues understandably did not pick up on as that was not there focus. I am proud to help the patients and my Ed colleagues by providing this service even though reimbursement wise I am not spending my time productively. I have also seen numerous missed fractures, pneumonias, etc that I have called directly to my Ed colleagues most of whom appreciate it.
5. Regarding misses- yes it happens to the best of all physicians and PAs and NPs. Miss rates in radiology are anywhere from 3% for critical findings to 30% for minor findings. I go out of my way to be respectful for the preliminary reads my Ed colleagues give- frankly it is easier for me to read such cases without the Ed doc’s note but when it is there I give it as much consideration as I can to avoid causing them an unnecessary difficulty.
6. We are specialized in radiology which means that all though in any given instance we may not be any better or possibly worse than our Ed colleagues, in the aggregate we do a better job and we do it more efficiently because that is our specialty justas acute care is the Ed doc’s specialty.
7. From my point of view, it would make my life a lot easier and more productive to skip the Ed xrays altogther. Due to pacs what will happen is when there are misses by the understandably busy Ed doc of critical but not urgent findings, we as radiologists will see the misses when they come for there followup ct or mr. I will do my best to minimize the damage in my reports to my Ed colleagues for their misses but I also owe the patient my best professional care which means I will comment on the misses if they will impact patient care.
8. Regarding not being available I am confused. Since I came out of residency fifteen years ago, I have gone in for multiple interventional cases after hours and then gone in the next day and worked as best I could on cognitively challenging cases. I have also driven in for diagnostic studies as my colleagues requested. Some of us wok shifts because you cannot safely read high cognitive load studies such as cts, Mrs, mammograms, etc if you cannot focus due to fatigue. We are not trying to find the 5cm mass but rather the 5mm nodule and it is tiring.
9. I know the Ed doc’s work shifts and do not take call afterwards and I understand their fatigue. At the same time, I can assure you a few hours of intense focus is also tiring so we are not exactly cruising.
10. If the Ed doc’s want to take responsibility for the studies and bill for them, I support this fully. They just have to understand what they are getting into. It is understandable to be confident when 95-98% of the cases are straight forward as long as they are also willing to accept the consequences for the truly critical. This means switching from an adrenalized go go state to a calm cerebral state and as an IR I have found such to be pretty hard and slows you down considerably. Radiology’s leverage is the ability to batch read such in a focused uninterrupted intense manner.
11. I have a lot of respect for my Ed colleagues but if they do not understand or appreciate what we offer, please final read your own cases.
I am a PGY 3 rad resident and I just finished an overnight call. I have never worked at the hospital that Dr. Mallon is at, but I cannot imagine a hospital, especially one as large as USC running the way he has described. My hospital (university affiliated community hospital) has 24/7/365 coverage. The “on call” residents put in prelim notes within 30 minutes from 5 pm to 7:30 am on all CT and MR as well as perform all the ultrasounds. Also, we perform immediate over-reads for all plain films in the ED and inpatient studies that we are called on that the ED may have questions or medicine has concern for line placement (policy is to answer the page within 5 minutes and have a note in by the time we hang up on plain films). we have 4th year residents (PGY5) for over-reads 24-7 as well attending over-reads until 11 pm and night hawk after 11. The hospital associated with my medical school functioned the same way, as well as the hospital I did my intern year at. I find it hard to believe that a hospital as large as USC goes an entire weekend without finalizing plain films when my hospital never goes more that 15 hours (plain film from the night before are finalized by noon the next day if no the ED had not called on them).
Also, the ER doc who said that he reads everything and the patient is “already in the OR” from his read is VERY CONCERNING if he thinks that he can not only perform the job of an ED physician, but read CT’s, MR’s and US as well as fellowship trained radiologists. He has not been trained in the modalities. He may understand the basics, but no one can know everything about everything. The scariest thing I have seen in the medical field is the physician that doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. The person who made that comment DOES NOT KNOW WHAT HE DOES NOT KNOW if he think s that he doesn’t need any radiology input on cross sectional imaging. I am not saying radiologists are smarter (to all of those people who may try to twist my words), but radiology is what we know. Just like a radiologist should manage ED patients (I have forgotten so much about medication doses since I haven’t written a prescription in 2 years) ED physicians should welcome input on imaging when it is available.
Dr. Mallon. you are unprofessional, the story you portray has to be embellished and your attitude is not conducive to a work environment that benefits the patient. I hope that you do not get to work with residents and pass on you attitude and misconceptions.
This entire article is a farse, a satire. it’s sad you do not see this.
I find it amusing that the only folks who agree with Mallon are the mid-level providers (NP w/a PhD-give me a break). One of the most dangerous scenarios in medicine is not knowing what you do not know. Folks without much training in imaging often have no clue what they are missing, and have very little insight into the level of performance from the true professionals. When they do find a “miss”, which is much more rare than they are letting on, they often over estimate the clinical importance of the finding and are bringing it to light to point out a shortcoming of a very overworked colleague. A colleague, BTW, who would love to not be quite so busy with endless ER studies that don’t meet ACR appropriateness criteria.
Surgeons, internists, sub-specialists from a variety of backgrounds all very much appreciate the input from radiologists, but somehow the PAs and NPs think that they could do a better job. My advice? Spend some real time in a reading room (perhaps one where more complex modalities are being read) and think about whether or not you really want that job. Is the answer still yes? Then apply to a radiology residency and get to work.
It’s a pity that the actual point of the article is missed and instead people focused on the negative/ironic/sarcastic tone.
Apparently many doctors have either forgotten the, or never took any, university level literary criticism or English courses… I hope everyone here is equally as outraged by any article they come across in The Onion. (The disclaimer should have been the first hint).
Ahh, radiologists. I love you guys, but you are all missing the entire point of this article. I’m gonna say it in a nicer way, but – be forewarned – I’m going to shout it (for drama). OK?
WE DON’T READ FILMS AS GOOD AS YOU GUYS DO. NOT AT ALL. WE’RE NOT PRETENDING THAT WE DO. AND SO WE REALLY, REALLY WANT YOU THERE AT NIGHT TO DO READ THEM, BUT IN MOST HOSPITALS IN THE COUNTRY, YOU ARE SLEEPING. AND SO WE’RE KIND OF FRUSTRATED THAT 1) WE HAVE TO READ THESE FILMS ON OUR OWN AT NIGHT, 2) WE THEN TAKE ON THE LIABILITY OF ACTING ON OUR OWN NON-EXPERT READS, AND 3) WE CAN’T EVEN BILL FOR IT.
That’s all. Don’t worry, you guys rock. No hard feelings?
And by the way, cardiologists – same thing with EKGs…
it would be nice if this was parody; i’ll assume it is as almost everyone else who is outraged has pretty much said what I was gonna say…so assuming this is parody, I would just point out to Dr. Mallon that I, a Radiologist, do in fact arrive at work some mornings in a chauffeur driven black Mercedes. Swear to God. Problem is, it belongs to my fiancee, head nurse in our local ER who sometimes drops me off. I drive a VW Jetta…
as for people upset with the disparity in pay, which survives this article’s satiric or serious nature, we didn’t make the rules, The AMA did. The Fed’s did. Medicare did. Stephen Hsaio (invented of the DRG) did. If you think we’re over paid for getting $18 for a chest X ray, you need therapy. If you think $200 for spending 20 minutes on 1000 images of a CT of the neck, chest, abdomen and pelvis ordered by the ER is too much, well, that goes both ways. We’ve just figured out how to maximize our gain from the system we’ve been handed.
so on further reading, there’s no chance this was intended to be satire or parody as “unemployed” suggests. None. The vitriol just doesn’t fit. There’s little humor. I suspect “unemployed” is actually Dr. Mallon, who was allegedly let go after this showed up, and now, politician style, is trying to say “I really didn’t mean it.”
I like the parasite analogy, however calling radiology “fraudulent” is fighting words. People go to jail for fraud.
On a personal note i’ve practiced in maybe 20 medical centers, been licensed in 12 states, done some locums, ran a group, worked in huge and tiny centers. I really haven’t seen much of what he’s ranting about. In fact, I’ve been involved with several hospitals years ago who have fired their rads for not coming in on weekends. So I think there’s a bit of “history” here for poor Dr. Fallon. I’m sure he’s a good Mazda driving ER doc. I am impressed with how good many ER docs are at reading plain films. $19,000 worth a year? I’m not going to fight over that. But there are a lot of ER docs who are truly frightening with radiology. I’ve seen on a daily basis just laughable and horrifying calls. And reading CT, MRI, or US? God, please don’t make me laugh…
Remember, we don’t order films. Referring docs do. And ER docs, for understandable reasons sometimes and obscure ones other times, order lots of films, many of which we know are contraindicated – rib films, facial bones, L spines. So we may be living large, but the person shoving the cattle into the chute is the ER doc. We normally work well together and have a lot of mutual respect. Dr. Mallon seems to be a bit of an atavistic horror show. He’s entitled to his opinion. I’m just shocked that a journal other than The Placebo Review would publish it.
seriously, have you been dumped by a radiologist before because you were not bright enough or RICH as she (or HEEEEE!!!!!!) expected? Get over it mate. From AUS
Dr. Mallon has proved that he is not a bright man by publicly offering up this Jersey Shore’s style rant against a whole group of people he has to see and work with on a daily basis. I sincerely hope he enjoys every second of the hostile work environment he has created for himself. I can only hope this monument to poor decision making skills was the byproduct of a long standing feud, or a bad break up, or a napoleon complex of some sort, and that he is not actually self important enough to think that people will take the things he has to say in this piece seriously after an introduction like the one featured here. If he thinks he has illuminated an issue, or changed the mind or heart of a reader, he is stupider then Snookie ranting about Obama taxing her tanning bed visits then claiming she has made a contribution to a political discussion.
How often does Dr. Mallon looks at the lab and radiology work up before examining the patient?
Unfortunately, Dr. Mallon doesn’t quite know his limitations. While he is quite adept at running certain algorithms, he dangerously refuses to seek consultation when he is in over his head. He can be quite effective in the day-to-day, bread and butter Emergency cases but languishes when specialist knowledge is required. I won’t give specific examples.
I read articles like this.
And it makes me sad.
Sincerely,
Dr. Buddy Leach
Hmm..parasitical foreign med grad comes into the US, leached off our govt for training, and then proceeds to talk about his slice of the pie?
LAUGHABLE.
ER docs know how to consult..Radiologists know how to diagnose and treat. End of story.
Go back to Peru.
To all the I.R.’s out there. Stop putting Modify 62 on my Vascular Surgeons procedures 934802-04). Bill for what “you do”, not for what my guys do.
Hey Jag. Nice try with the EDUS digg. I know some radiologist who miss cholecystits too but that doesn’t mean you are all stupid. As I’m sure you know there are over 60 1 year EDUS fellowships in the country. Do you know why Jag? Because at night time when you are sleeping after your intense day in the dark, people sometimes come into the ER with life threatening conditions that really need an ultrasound to treat optimally. Ectopic pregnancy, AAA, Sepsis, PE, acute CHF are among a host of conditions where having US images can completely change treatments and dispositions. Only in a select few places are we getting paid for this. We have just recognized that you won’t be here to help us so we have decided to follow the OB and Cardiologist lead and learn for ourselves.
When I order a study I’m actually consulting radiology. And I welcome any radiologist who will leave their chair and come down to see a patient with me, ask about the patients history and physical exam findings, and even talk to the patient. Ortho does it, ENT does it, Vasc Surgery does it, OB/Gyn does it, Psych does it. I’ve even had pathology do it, but I have never had a radiologist do it.
Your livelihood relies on these consults, and you’ve pissed off most other specialties because you’re looking to read more and make more money. You’ve even began to cannibalize younger rad docs by increasing residency spots when your grads can’t find jobs, increasing fellowship spots to 2 years to get another year of “free reads”, and this glut of rad docs has made it now so that private groups can charge $250K to $500K buy-ins after 2 to 3 years of low salary pay. It’s a sad state in the profession of radiology.
It would behoove medicine to see primary imaging reads fall back to the ordering physicians and rads become a real consult service.
The problem with radiology is nothing a future EM fellowship can’t cure. Today it’s an ultrasound fellowship tomorrow it’s a CT fellowship. There’s no need to consult when you’re trained to handle it yourself.
ER docs consult because our ER’s are stock full of patients and we can’t find enough board certified EP’s or competent mid-levels to help. When that demand is met EP’s will be looking for new responsibilities, and nothing is more in need than someone read an image real time who knows the patient because they’ve actually seen them, collected a history, and completed a physical.
While many of you are complaining about unprofessional radiology bashing, how about the things said by radiologists here? ER docs are triage docs,have no clinical acumen, don’t do work etc…you guys are no different from Mallon, even if you are responding to him.
We both have gripes. We know you read these films and scans better than us–you did a 4 year (at least) residency devoted to just that, and now it’s your practice. we would like radiology reads that are useful to the patient for the reason they are presenting to the ED, which means that have to happen while they are there. We acknowledge that your incidental findings of nodules, cancers etc are important.
ER docs as a whole need to take back their profession–stop letting admin people dictate metrics like time in dept without giving you more resources, because that’s what leads to blood work and un-needed radiology studies being ordered. Stop letting them under-staff the ED so we can’t think about patients and have to use algorithms and people like the PA above who presented his/her dangerous practice patterns.
Working in an ED is stressful and constantly challenging, but it is easy to be bad at it and hard to be good at it. Good care happens when we all work together.
The inflammatory and poorly communicated message of the article is that: if the x-ray or CT is done for an emergency room patient, it should be read by SOMEONE (who is good at it )while they are still being evaluated. Otherwise, what’s the point? And that person should be paid for it. That does not happen in some community hospitals.
To the great radiologists who call me and puzzle over cases with me on the phone, thank you.
Radiologists should not be considered true doctors. They do not care about patients because they never see them. All they want is to make money and get home by 3pm. The reads are despicable at my institution and only serve to cover their liability (correlate clinically) or garner more studies (follow up ct for a 4mm nodule in a patient actively crashing from a PE). They should be ashamed they took someone’s spot in medical school who could actually be doing good. Solution to the Medicare crisis, strip all radiologists of their MD and make them dig ditches!!
Radiologists should not be considered true doctors. They do not care about patients because they never see them. All they want is to make money and get home by 3pm. The reads are despicable at my institution and only serve to cover their liability (correlate clinically) or garner more studies (follow up ct for a 4mm nodule in a patient actively crashing from a PE). They should be ashamed they took someone’s spot in medical school who could actually be doing good. Solution to the Medicare crisis, strip all radiologists of their MD and make them dig ditches!!
This discussion is riveting but I’m gonna take some action and drop a grenade into the reading room. They are the worlds worst doctors and human beings. I’ve never met one who knows anything.
I can’t wait to be making bank and driving a fancy car because I will be making $$$ from reading chest x rays, CTs and MRIs! Radiologist SUCK!!!!!!!!!
I just saw this article after searching the internet about radiologists. You know what else I found out?? All radiologists cheat on their boards and the boards are a joke. Just watch a CNN special report on it. (http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/13/health/prescription-for-cheating). What an absolute joke their whole speciality is!!! This just confirms that they know nothing. And this adds to the facts that I already know about them that they do nothing (work like 25 hours a week–if they are working “full time”–I heard that most of them at our hospital show up at like 10AM and leave by 3 and have an hour for lunch and work only 4 days a week– and when they are at work they basically sit there and refuse to do studies or read the ones that have been done in a timely manner) and that they don’t care at all about who the patient is. As a nurse I know more medicine, anatomy and physiology then these “doctors” do. I also work 100x harder and care for patients infinately more. I despise radiologists even more now then I ever did before!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I agree with the last post that RADIOLOGISTS SUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am a healthy person and will definitely avoid ER where docs are so unhappy and definitely refuse xrays and CT scans because no one is accountable. Shame on medical profession and shame on this website to publish this nonsense. I am glad I am not one of these morons, disgustingly discussing their work politics openly on the web. If this is what they have earned after 15 years of so-called “education” and many many years of unprofessional “profession”, then I would definitely not encourage my kids or anybody to take medicine as their career. Shame Shame Shame. Dr Mallon, you should shoot yourself in head for writing your frustrations and seek psychiatric care.
3 years is not enough to learn to be “the jack of all trades”. A nurse will do a better job doing triage than this overpaid shift workers. Their only job is to prescribe narcs…
I will install a CT on the door of the ER and a secretary to call consults. More efficient and safer and cheaper than the ED “docs”
It seems funny to me that radiologists are still posting about this article. They won’t work past 4pm but can bitch about how important they are and how much Er docs suck at all hours of the night. Wake up rads, you speciality is dying and you have no skills and don’t do anything worth being paid for!!!! Have fun mopping the floors of my trauma bay in 5 years.
I read the article and the petty posts above and all I can wonder is how after all this education can there be this much stupidity in medicine. I used to complain that medicine was always being ruined by outside parties (insurance companies, attorneys, government, etc), but it’s plain and obvious that it is rotting from the inside by catty fighting, rivalry, and neglect of a patient centered model. Damn shame.
I am a radiology resident working in the ED right now, I just diagnosed a tibial plateau fracture that was missed by the ED docs on their prelim read. Good thing I called them before the patient left the ED
I’ve been a radiologist for 15 years staffing an incredibly busy ER in a group that provides 24/7/365 interpretation of all modalities. In an inappropriately clumsy and insulting manner, Dr.Mallon raises valid points. Contemporaneous interpretations are a must. It’s a shame he picked such a classless way to try to make his points.
As for some o the other ER docs who think radiology is a dying field and we’ll be mopping your trauma floor in 5 years, whatever. Hope it some how makes you feel better to think that way. If you’re convinced you can read the US better than rads, then take your pictures and document what you did so that it can be reviewed, just like we have to. Our ER docs tried doing their own US and the hospital shut them down because they never documented their work. It was a major liability for the hospital when a suspected ectopic was missed but there were no films to review, just an ER docs “impression” in the chart that the pelvic US was normal.
Fortunately, my group gets along great with the ER because we realize its better patient care for us to play nicely together in the sandbox instead of throwing onto one another.
Look in my shift last night, I was the one who diagnosed appendicitis by CT, :15 min before a radiologist even called me, hemming and hawing about whether it was. (Radiologists are so infuriatingly indecisive and unclinical). I diagnosed pneumonia where the radiologist said it could be atelectasis or aspiration. I should be the one making money based on my X-ray and ct skills not some greedy dim wit sitting in a dark room. I then also put in a triple lumen Cather myself.
So I ask you this, what is the role for a radiologist in my ER? I’m making diagnoses. I’m doing procedures that the IR ‘doctors’ need flouro and X-ray for. I can’t wait until all of radiology is outsourced to India!!!
To the poster above me,
You required a CT to diagnose appendicitis? Isn’t that usually a clinical diagnosis? Why would you choose the one disease that best highlights your fields increasing lack of basic clinical skills, and increasing dependence on imaging?
Just keep on diagnosing obvious findings on those CT’s slick… and maybe even grow a pair and put your name at the bottom of the report. When you miss that giant sarcoma in the spine while ruling out diverticulitis, I’ll be at your deposition. Have fun! 🙂
To the above poster: Have you ever tried to get a surgeon to take a clinical appy to the OR? I will call you next time I have one while waiting for you to read the CT. Let me tell you how it goes:
Me: Hello Dr Surgeon, I have a 24yo otherwise health male with RLQ pain that migrated from his umbilicus associated with anorexia, nausea, and fever. He is tender with rebound in his RLQ with positive Rosving and Psoas signs. His WBC count is 20.
Surgeon: What does the CT show?
Me: Well the radiologist tells me this is a clinical diagnosis and my skills are lacking/ I am basically just a nurse if I order one.
Surgeon: *click*
This goes to not commenting until you walk a mile in another’s shoes. No, appendicitis is 100% not a clinical diagnosis these days, sorry. But feel free to bill for that Ct I ordered. Oh, and we don’t actually panscan all of our pts. I highly doubt you are comparing your worklist to mine. Much like it feels that every ambulance in the world is coming to my ED, it feels like I order a CT on everyone. But you know in your little heart that is not the case. Just saying.
Now lets just all agree that surgeons are the enemy.
Dr: Mallon
For a moment I thought you were from another planet.
My question is: have you actually been in a radiology department? I think not.
I can only understand your article, if you were under the influence of alcohol, drugs or something else …. I can only think that you keep inside much hate or envy. Does any radiologist harm you?.
I invite you to visit me and my hospital radiology department, but beware, I (and my colleagues) won´t arrive in a German car, we don´t earn that salary and do not have the vacation you mentioned and of course our workday is not even remotely similar to what you mind … I promise you a unique experience of contact with reality …. ( you are very far away from it).
Best Wishes from Spain (in this planet, not in yours)
I personally could care less who gets the money, what I do care about is not making serious mistakes that could endanger lives and by default cause liability against all treating parties, the absolute best is a well oiled machine of professionals getting it right for the patient at all times..We all do what we do because that is what we wanted to do..All medical fields are important and we as Doctors should support each other in his highly demanding and litigious environment instead of attacking each other ….
I am forever grateful of the Radiologist input and respect them like I respect all others but for those Radiologist who are clearly disrespecting Emergency Medicine calling us Triage Nurses, overpaid and ignorant please think what you are saying …I welcome you to treat 15 patients or more( not one study at a time) at the same time with all sort of illnesses from simple to complex while dealing with consultants desires, admitting orders, interpreting imaging studies,EKGs, labs , family members and ED/ Hospital codes , EMS calls, transferring Facilities, new patients, Electronic Medical records, lack of consultants …etc.. This is the life of the ED Doc… Respect it!! The only parasites on this world that truly annoys me are the Lawyers … They profit regardless …
Horray to Dr. Mallon exposing these ‘doctors’ for the frauds they are. Radiologists are greedy, self serving and lazy–and those are their good parts. Some of the ones at my hospital I want to strangle with my bear hands. I can’t wait until we officially read all our films and get the hard earned money we deserve from this. I warn any premed or med student–don’t do radiology. It will be a dead speciality in 3-5 years.
Almost 3 years later, rads still goin’ strong with volumes higher than ever, mostly thanks to superfluous exam ordering via the ED.
Hows this going for you? 10 years later and radiology is hot as ever with a great job market. Yet the ED docs are losing their jobs. Have you ever billed for a single plain film? Didn’t think so. Enjoy unemployment
Is it hard to practice medicine with bear hands? Are they actual bear hands or just resemble bear hands?
Thank you.
I just came across this post while researching how I can better cover the ER to assist my ER colleagues. I work harmoniously with them as they do with me. Just because the OP is a jealous little tool doesn’t mean we should resort to general name calling regarding each others specialties, but you should definitely call him out for what he is.
Not sure what hospital doesn’t do stay reads 24/7, I work at a rural hospital and we use telerad when our rads are not there. That said, I have seen ED Drs order facial bones for “a white mass” in the gums of a 16 month old baby and nearly send home a patient with DVP. So maybe climb down off your high horse and realize not dept is perfect. Oh and for the love of all that is holy please stop ordering Cxr PA and laterals portable!!
I guess I’m a bit late to this party since I’ve been busting my tail for the last 8 years as a board certified IR/DR. This article is hilarious on so many levels!! Did this guy create his own medical school? I would love to see if his tone has mellowed down since 2011 or if he even has a license to practice medicine anymore.
“Dr.” Mellon thinks hating the the player and hating the game will help him feel better about himself. If anyone is a fraud here, it’s this loser and his “medical degree”.
Dr. Mallon’s article on payment for x-ray interpretations in the Oct. 4, 2011 issue was, I believe, and expression of significant frustration with radiologists and the American College of Radiology over their reluctance to consider compromise solutions to this longstanding issue. In 2009 I submitted a rather long letter to the editor of the American Journal of Radiology entitled ‘Payment for X-ray Interpretation in the ED: Solving the Dilemma’. This letter was published in the May 2009 issue along with an invited response from Dr. James Borgstede, former chair of the Board of Chancellors of the ACR. In this letter I addressed, in what I though was a very a collegial manner, the CMS opinion that the physician who provides the interpretation and report of an x-ray contemporaneously with the patient’s care in the ED deserves to receive the reimbursement for this service, and the potential fraudulent claim issue. I also acknowledged that the ‘radiologist’s reading may bring to light not only the uncommon clinically-significant error by the ED physician but also incidental but important findings that are unrelated to the proximate cause of the ED visit’. I expressed the opinion that ‘both specialists are providing valuable services that deserve to be compensated’. I proposed a reasonable solution – a CPT code modifier for the contemporaneous interpretation and another modifier for the final report, and suggested that if the radiologist provided both services (in a timely fashion) they could certainly bill with both. I also proposed an alternative, more facile solution: have these two specialists contractually share the compensation for this service when appropriate to ‘reflect the relative value, liability risk, and overhead for each provider’s contribution’.
Dr. Borgstede’s response was disappointingly hedged with the same arguments, excuses, and irrelevant distractions that the ACR and many (though not all) radiologists have been using for years to avoid addressing the germane issues. The ACR’s continuing reluctance to consider legally and financially sound and reasonable solutions to this problem are a daily poke in the eye with a sharp stick to many emergency physicians, some of who are eventually going to feel like poking back.
It is now 2021, and the issue remains pretty much unresolved.
Myles Riner, MD, FACEP
Well this didn’t age well. Homeboy stroked out. Diagnosed by (you guessed it) a Radiologist.
Yep. The author of this article had a massive stroke that was diagnosed and treated by a radiologist. The very people he loathes. I wonder if he is still a such a hate-filled and bitter person.