Why do radiologists have a relatively high salary compared to the other medical specialities ?

Question

I understand why surgeons for example have the highest pay rate, but why radiologists ??

Answer 1

High liability is a big reason. Every time a radiologist puts his/her name on a reading, such as calling a mammogram normal, there is risk if the patient later develops cancer.

Also, some radiologists are interventional radiologists. They don't merely read studies performed by X-ray techs, they do procedures with imaging equipment such as ultrasound or fluoroscopy. This adds liability and that increases fees. Plus, procedures always pay better than just thinking and giving opinions or instructions.

Those are the appropriate reasons for a healthy paycheck for radiologists.

But simply lobbying Medicare to overpay you is also an effective, even if not justifiable, way of raising income by being paid more, as Medicare rates generally drive the industry and other insurers follow suit overpaying in the same way. I don't know that this has happened, merely that it may have.

Also, if there are radiology shortages, whether by accident or design, prices go up.

One big danger to non-interventional radiologists is the advent of remote computer-assisted evaluation of imaging studies and foreign outsourcing of image interpretation. It could created a glut of radiologist and make work hard to find and at a lower rate of pay. In medicine, you need a procedure to generate income, and in radiology, you also need it to remain essential to the process.

Answer 2

Radiologist Pay Rate

Answer 3

Good question and good answer above.
One reason is that they do procedures which are highly compensated by third party payers - health insurance. Doing procedures is where the best reimbursement is in medicine.
It has been a pet peeve for those of us who do consultations - spending time examining records, thinking, writing, and explaining to patients and family members. That time is very poorly reimbursed. I've retired from internal medicine with the subspecialties of hematology and oncology. Many hours of my days were spent explaining cancer and leukemia to patients and families. We did not bill for lengthy discussion
times - often carried out in part by phone since worried family members would call to ask for repeat explanations. Unlike our lawyers, we did not charge for our time on the phone with patients or families. People are understandably frightened since cancer is a scary diagnosis.
Radiologists can spend their time reading films and doing procedures without using a lot of time explaining the findings to the patients. (They do explain the risks of their procedures to get consent beforehand.)
The explanations of results - often bad news - was provided by those of us who ordered the radiology tests.
It is a bit of a problem that doctors are not reimbursed for time spent talking with patients - people appreciate that and often complain that doctors don't spend enough time talking.
We knew what we were getting into when we chose to go into internal medicine specialties without many procedures that we could bill for. Pediatricians may have it the toughest.
They should be reimbursed better than they are since treatment of the young is arguably more valuable than the treatment of much older patients. The majority of my patients were over 65. We spend a huge amount of money in this country (the U.S.) on the last years of life.

Answer 4

One of many reasons is that Radiologists have shorter life spans