workforce shortage Archives - The Imaging Wire

Is radiology’s workforce shortage really just a matter of “geographic inconvenience?” A new report suggests that job shortages are mostly isolated to areas that radiologists consider to be less desirable geographically, where “zombie jobs” go unfilled for months.

The workforce shortage in radiology (and healthcare for that matter) has become a common refrain, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Exam volumes are rising steadily with an aging population, but the radiology workforce remains static.

At least, that’s how the story goes. But a new study from RadBoard.io challenges that narrative, claiming that many radiologist openings are going unfilled because they are in geographically undesirable areas.

RadBoard’s Kirill Lopatin analyzed 20.8k job postings in the U.S. over 78 days that represented 11k unique job ads (at least 47% of ads were just re-posts of the same role, but the number is probably much higher).

The study found that of the postings with complete “lifespans” (from initial posting to deactivation)…

25% were filled in less than one week, and another 12% in 7-14 days.
28% took 31-60 days to fill.
2.3% took 61-90 days (and maybe even longer).

So nearly one-third of radiology job ads were open longer than a month, leading RadBoard to conclude that radiology didn’t have a single fill rate for open positions – “it has two markets layered on top of each other.”

RadBoard called radiologist job ads open for more than 60 days “zombie jobs,” with some markets having higher “stuck rates” as calculated by ads open longer than 60 days divided by total open job ads.

States with the worst job markets by stuck rate included Nebraska (68%), Minnesota (41%), and Washington state (35%).

At the other end of the spectrum were Florida (18%), Texas (15%), and New York (14%).

This led RadBoard to conclude that the radiologist shortage was not a national problem – it was concentrated in areas where radiologists didn’t want to live.

Also, jobs in stuck markets paid $175k less than those in faster-cycling markets ($550k vs. $725k) – the opposite of what might be expected in a scarce market.

The Takeaway

The new numbers offer an eye-opening look at the narrative around the radiologist shortage, indicating that it may be more nuanced than previously thought. And the subtext to the data hints at the divide in U.S. healthcare between rural areas and metropolitan regions.

Radiologist attrition rates have jumped 50% since 2020, and new workforce projections suggest the shortage will only worsen as imaging demand continues to outpace supply. The report – from staffing firm Medicus Healthcare Solutions – projects a worsening supply of radiologists by 2037.

It’s no news to anyone that healthcare is being squeezed by rising volumes from an aging population and chronic staff shortages caused by a training system that simply isn’t turning out enough qualified medical professionals.

In radiology, both radiologists and radiologic technologists are in short supply, and there have been only 29 diagnostic radiology PGY-1 training positions added since 2021.

The Medicus report mostly assembles data acquired from other sources such as a recent study in JACR on radiologist supply, but taken together the numbers paint a sobering picture …

Imaging utilization is projected to grow 17-27% by 2055.
Radiologist attrition rates have grown 50% since 2020.
Radiologist distribution per 100k population is uneven across the U.S., ranging from 25 radiologists in Minnesota to 9 radiologists in some other states.
Reimbursement is falling, with the Medicare conversion factor for 2025 dropping -2.83% for diagnostic radiology and -4.83% for interventional radiology.

What’s to be done? On the positive side, at least one new radiologist residency program started up this year, and legislation was recently introduced that would add 14k residency training slots over seven years.

The report also recommends teleradiology as a possible solution, with 92% of radiologists in a recent survey saying their institution offered remote work options and 73% of radiologists participating in remote work.

Medicus also advised health systems to take several compensation-focused steps to attract and retain radiologists …

Offer flexible, hybrid work schedules.
Provide competitive compensation packages and signing bonuses.
Improve vacation policies and time-off benefits.

The Takeaway

It’s hard to see short-term Band-Aids like better salary and benefits solving healthcare’s workforce shortage. And some are even questioning whether AI will really help make radiologists more efficient. In the end, systemic changes like a sharp expansion in residency training slots are what’s needed to effect a long-term solution to the staffing dilemma.

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