Dr. Ana Lourenco and colleagues sought to assess whether practice sites affect recall rates for individual radiologists. The group used screening mammography annual audit data gathered between May 2008 and September 2011 from five radiologists who read mammograms at both a community office practice and a tertiary care hospital. Full-field digital mammography was done at both sites and interpreted in batch screening sessions.
The five radiologists interpreted a total of 73,297 screening mammograms at both sites during the study period (36,606 at the community-based site and 36,691 at the tertiary hospital). In total, 5,799 patients were recalled at both sites, for an overall recall rate of 7.9%.
Recall rates were higher in the hospital setting, at 8.9%, compared with 6.9% at the community-based site. As for the individual radiologists, recall rates were lower at the community site than at the hospital: 3.7% versus 6.5%, 9.6% versus 12%, 7.5% versus 9.1%, 7.6% versus 11.5%, and 5.6% versus 8%.
The results are likely due to complicating patient factors in the hospital setting, Lourenco's group concluded, which would be important to consider when comparing recall rates between practices or using them as a pay-for-performance measure.
