does your wife's radiologist bill for his services, or is the hospital doing this for him. I have yet to see a radiologist that works strictly on salary, almost no specialists do, I was speaking mostly of the GPs or Internists. It will be a sad day when hospitals swallow up the specialists too.
Also, ask your wife about teleradiologists and why this is gaining in popularity, they are paid more reading for the hospital than reading for the clinic, even if it's the same. Even sitting in the same chair, on the same PACs system. It's a mess.
Your wife is one of the good guys, give her a hug for me.
She's in teleradiology.
Hospitals save money by paying offsite rads instead of having to keep radiologists on staff.
Hospitals sign contracts for the pricing of the reads, a different amount for a different kind of read and turnaround time desired. If it's life and death, it will be read right away...and the hospital will pay more than if it can be read in 2 hours from now.
The rads receive a salary+commission based on how many and which kind of reads they do per shift. They also can work anywhere they are able to receive highspeed internet. You can work for a Cali company, yet live in New York. Most work out of their homes, while some have an office.
Instead of having multiple radiologists on staff in case of needing multiple reads at once, they outsource it to a private company. An offsite Telerad company working with multiple hospitals at the same time saves every hospital that they work with money. But, if I'm in a bus crash in the middle of nowhere, I hope the podunk hospital they take me to is set up for telerad. Because what will happen when 4 people have head injuries and need reads
RIGHT NOW and there's only one rad on site.
If you're not familiar with Teleradiology, look it up. It's pretty cool how it works.