Radiology appointment management in German hospitals: a survey of referring physicians

Referring physicians' experiences with imaging coordination remain underexplored. This study compares imaging coordination experiences between general practitioners (GPs) as outpatient referrers and hospital-based physicians as inpatient referrers.

A nationwide cross-sectional survey was conducted in Germany (June 2023-June 2024), including 220 physicians in the final analytical cohort (79 GPs, 141 hospital-based physicians).

GPs had significantly more professional experience than hospital-based physicians (20 ± 14 vs. 7 ± 9 years; p < 0.001), with no gender differences (p = 0.71). GPs rated the impact of imaging delays on patient care (4.4 ± 1.5) and coordination challenges with radiology services (4.6 ± 1.4) significantly above the neutral midpoint of 4.0 (whereas hospital-based physicians did so only for coordination challenges. Hospital-based physicians preferred real-time workflow tracking (34.8% vs. 9.0%; p < 0.001) and automated reminders of radiological appointments (20.6% vs. 6.5%; p = 0.006), whereas GPs favored centralized scheduling (33.3% vs. 19.2%; p = 0.02) and urgent case prioritization (42.3% vs. 23.4%; p = 0.005). Short-term appointment availability was the highest-ranked priority among the five evaluated categories by referring physicians, accounting for 25.0% of weighted rankings (p < 0.001).

Scheduling delays remain a major barrier to timely diagnostics and reflect multifactorial system constraints. Referrer-specific appointment strategies may improve coordination across outpatient and inpatient settings.

This survey identifies barriers to radiology appointment scheduling among outpatient and inpatient referrers in German hospital radiology departments, providing a basis for targeted strategies to reduce imaging delays.

Short-term availability ranks highest priority across groups of referrers. GPs reported higher perceived impact of imaging delays on patient care than hospital doctors. Referrer preferences vary: GPs favor centralized scheduling. Hospital-based physicians prefer real-time workflow tracking. Referrer-specific interventions may improve perceived reliability of imaging coordination.