Liability and Lifestyle Issues Frustrate Radiologists
Physician Salary Survey Indicates 70% of Radiologists Would Choose Medicine Again
ALPHARETTA, GA, November 25, 2006
Alpharetta , Ga. , November 25, 2006— Among 277 radiologists responding to a national salary survey conducted this past summer by LocumTenens.com, only 7% said they were not frustrated about practicing medicine in today’s healthcare marketplace. The remaining respondents identified with a list of possible frustrations as follows:
Medical liability issues – 24%
Lifestyle issues: Too much time at work – 22%
Administrative and business agendas interfere with clinical decisions – 16%
Reimbursement issues – 14%
Among the 60% of responding radiologists who answered the open-ended question regarding which one thing they would change about the practice of medicine if they could, 39% mentioned medical liability. Another 12% cited reimbursement issues.
“Liability issues and low reimbursement levels have forced many radiologists out of providing certain services, mammography being chief among them,” LocumTenens.com Vice President Katie Thill said. “The mammography situation got serious enough that in 2004 the Institute of Medicine warned that access to breast cancer screening is threatened by a shortage of physicians performing breast imaging interpretation .”
Regardless of their frustration, 70% of survey respondents said they would choose medicine as a career path if they had it to do over again. This compares with respondents from other specialties as follows:
56% of obstetricians/gynecologists
57% of orthopedic surgeons
67% of anesthesiologists
69% of general surgeons
70% of pediatricians and internists
More than half of responding radiologists (59%) said they had no plans to change jobs in the foreseeable future. However, about a third (33%) of survey respondents said they planned to change jobs within the next two years, almost half of those (15%) within six months. (To see complete radiologist survey results, click here: http://www.locumtenens.com/radiology_salaries2006.)
As the Radiological Society of North America begins meeting in Chicago this weekend, physician recruiting firm LocumTenens.com shared these and other highlights of its 2006 radiologist salary survey.
Regarding physician salaries, the LocumTenens.com survey results indicate the average radiologist salary decreased by almost 7%, from $354,260 in 2005 to $330,100 in 2006. This year’s survey results indicate that 40% of radiologists earn annual salaries of $300,000 or less, with 22% of those earning less than $225,000 per year. Slightly more than a fourth of respondents (27%) earn annual salaries of more than $400,000.
Eighty-eight percent of survey participants were male, 88% were board-certified, and more than half (58%) had practiced medicine for more than 10 years. Sixty-one percent of responding radiologists reported working as a locum tenens radiologist at least some of the time; another 34% said they would consider it.
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Founded in 1995, LocumTenens.com is a full-service physician/CRNA recruiting firm specializing in supplemental placement of anesthesiologists, radiologists, psychiatrists, surgeons and CRNAs with U.S. hospitals, medical groups and community health centers. LocumTenens.com is part of the Jackson Healthcare family of companies. To learn more, visit the company's web sites at http://www.locumtenens.com/media and http://www.crnajobs.com/.
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Contact:
Billie Wickstrom
888-268-2456
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LocumTenens.com, the agency | Call LocumTenens.com toll free at 800-930-0748 |
