In a new survey, 41% of radiologists in the U.S. left at least one job between 2014 and 2018, indicating that broader workforce trends may affect job-hopping, according to a study published November 13 in the Journal of the American College of Radiology.
The radiologist workforce in the U.S. has become highly and increasingly mobile, and those who were most likely to leave their jobs included radiologists early and late in their careers, as well as general radiologists and those working in smaller, multispecialty, and nonacademic practices, according to the authors.
The researchers used the Medicare Physician Compare database to link all radiologists to associated group practices annually between 2014 and 2018. Then, the researchers assessed trends in radiologists separating from their practices using a variety of physician and group characteristics. In all, 25,228 radiologists associated with 4,381 unique group practices were included in the study.
Radiologist-practice separation rates were 47% for multispecialty groups versus 38% for radiology-only practices. The rate was higher in nonacademic settings at 46% compared with 32% in academic practices, according to the study.
On a geographic basis, separation rates were 44% for those working in the Northeast compared with 39% in the South. Additionally, 43% of general radiologists changed jobs, while only 38% of subspecialty radiologists made switches. Among subspecialists, separation rates ranged from 43% for breast imagers to 34% for cardiothoracic imagers, according to the findings.
