Imaging Turnaround Time Increased From 2023 to 2024

FRIDAY, Aug. 14, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Imaging turnaround times continued to increase across modalities through 2024, according to a study published online Aug. 3 in Journal of the American College of Radiology.

Alexandra R. Drake, M.P.H., from the Harvey L. Neiman Health Policy Institute in Reston, Va., and colleagues updated national outpatient radiologic-report turnaround time trends, using data from a 5 percent sample of Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries from 2014 to 2024.

Based on more than 2.87 million technical imaging claims matched with professional claims within 30 days, the researchers found that most claims were for radiography/fluoroscopy (XR; 59.7 percent) followed by computed tomography (CT; 16.0 percent), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI; 13.0 percent), and ultrasound (11.4 percent). Across the study period, turnaround times were 0.091 days in 2014, followed by a slight increase in 2021 to 0.104 days. Thereafter, turnaround times increased each year, reaching 0.251 days in 2024. Overall, turnaround times increased 177 percent during the 2021 to 2024 period, with 92.0 percent of the total increase occurring from 2022 to 2024 (12.3 percent in 2022, 46.2 percent in 2023, and 33.4 percent in 2024). Turnaround times increased from 2023 to 2024 across all imaging modalities (49.1 percent for ultrasound, 35.4 percent for XR, 11.6 percent for CT, and 4.5 percent for MRI). While most imaging studies were interpreted on the same day (96.7 percent during the full study period), the share interpreted one or more calendar days after imaging acquisition increased from 1.97 percent in 2014 to 7.39 percent in 2024, a 3.8-fold increase. Similarly, the share of imaging studies interpreted seven or more calendar days after acquisition increased from 0.41 percent in 2014 to 0.87 percent in 2024, a 2.1-fold increase. While the increase in mean turnaround time from 2023 to 2024 was smaller than the increase from 2022 to 2023, both overall and by modality, turnaround times still increased.

“With radiologists already in short supply, projected shortages in physician supply and rising imaging utilization, these results continue to raise concerns about the ability of the current and future radiologist workforce to meet the growing imaging demand in a timely manner,” the authors write.

Abstract/Full Text (subscription or payment may be required)