Productivity of radiologists in 1997: estimates based on analysis of resource-based relative value units

Productivity of radiologists was quantified using the resource-based relative value scale for examining trends in workload.

Staffing and workload data for 1997 were collected in a survey of radiology departments in multispecialty clinics. Workload ratios were calculated and were compared with prior surveys of the same clinics and with published data.

Fifteen clinics reported 3,234,730 examinations and 1,860,729 resource-based relative value units (RBRVUs) performed by 284 radiologists and 28 fellows serving 6305 providers. Productivity ratios were as follows: physician index, 19 physicians per radiologist; provider index, 23 providers per radiologist; availability index, 0.78; difficulty index, 0.54 RBRVUs per examination; examination index, 11,559 examinations per year per radiologist; RBRVU index, 6090 RBRVUs per year per radiologist. Each index had roughly a twofold range of variation from lowest to highest ratio observed. Among diagnostic and interventional procedures, 37% of the supervision and interpretation RBRVUs were in general radiography, 41% in sectional imaging, and 22% in special procedures. Since 1973, the percentages of sectional imaging and special procedure examinations and RBRVUs have increased, and the difficulty index has increased. The physician index has been relatively stable. Non-supervision and interpretation codes constitute approximately 18% of the reported RBRVUs. RBRVU valuation of total radiology services has held steady or slightly increased between 1993 and 1997.

RBRVU workload of radiologists in the clinics appears to be increasing primarily because of an increase in the percentages of highly valued sectional imaging and interventional and angiographic studies, which constituted 63% of the diagnostic imaging RBRVU workload. The ranges of the indexes among the clinics varies greatly.