You scanned it today. The report is what is late.
Outpatient imaging centers sell turnaround to referring physicians, then wait on subspecialty reads they cannot justify staffing full time. This page is for the operator whose schedule is full and whose unread list is the thing that is growing.
Each of those four is defined and dated on the SLA and quality page, and repeated with a citable anchor per figure on the facts page.
The scan day ends. The unread list carries on.
A center rarely loses a referrer over a missed finding. It loses one over a report that arrived after the patient was already back in the office.
The unread queue outlives the scan day
Studies arrive faster than the reading day absorbs them and the queue rolls forward. Referrers stop chasing the report and start sending the next patient somewhere else.
Two studies a week nobody on site should be reading
A breast MRI or a cardiac study arrives often enough to matter and not often enough to justify a fellowship-trained reader on payroll. It waits, or it is read by someone who would rather it were not.
A turnaround promise that breaks on a holiday week
Same-day was easy to sell and is hard to hold through vacation, a sick reader, or the Monday after a long weekend. One bad fortnight undoes a year of referral building.
What a center sends, and on which clock
Send one modality, one subspecialty, or the whole overflow. There is no minimum volume, no bundle and no subscription to buy first, so a center can start with the studies it least wants to read.
- Screening and diagnostic mammography
- Breast MRI and breast ultrasound
- MSK and neuro MRI
- Body CT and CT angiography
- General ultrasound and plain film overflow
- Nuclear medicine and PET-CT
Credentialing without a medical staff office
An outpatient center is not a hospital medical staff, so the paperwork is different and considerably shorter. What your accreditation file and your payers want is evidence about the interpreting physician.
Interpreting physician documentation, per reader
State licence, board certification, individual NPI, certificate of professional liability insurance and continuing education in the modality, supplied for every radiologist who reads your studies and refreshed as they renew.
Breast imaging carries its own federal requirements
Mammography interpretation is governed by requirements that sit on the physician, not on the facility alone. Breast studies route only to readers who meet them, and the documentation goes into your file with everything else.
Licensed in the state the study was acquired in
The panel holds licences in all 50 states. Multi-state operators do not need a separate arrangement per location, and every read happens inside the United States.
A report the referrer acts on without phoning you first.
Your referrers judge you on the report, not on the scan. A report that reads like the one your best radiologist writes is the entire product.
A final read, so nothing waits on a second signature
The interpretation is final and signed. It does not need an in-house overread before the study can be closed, which is the difference between buying one read and buying part of one.
A named interpreting physician on every study you send
The reading radiologist's name, credentials and state licence are on the report, frozen at signature time. There is no anonymous pool signature and no group byline standing in for a person.
Delivered into your RIS and out to the referring office
Signed reports return to your PACS and into your RIS and EMR over the standard HL7 result interface, with a PDF copy anywhere else you want one. Nothing installs on your side and no clinician learns a new viewer.
Critical findings phoned to the ordering physician
A suspected critical finding is phoned to your team within minutes of sign-off and recorded on the report with the time and the person it was given to, so the callback is evidenced rather than remembered.
Who bills the professional component on an outpatient study
Billing is set in your agreement rather than on this page, because it depends on how your professional billing runs today. What is true of every report either way: it is a final signed interpretation, and it carries the reading radiologist's full name, credentials and the state licence they read under, so the report is chart-ready as it arrives. Tell us how you bill now and the arrangement goes in writing before you sign anything.
Ten business days, and nothing installs on your side.
Nothing installs on your side and your technologists change nothing. First signed report within 10 business days of countersignature.
Documentation and connection
Interpreting physician files go into your accreditation binder. The VPN or TLS link is established and tested against your PACS.
Routing, priors and test studies
DICOM routing is configured so priors and order data travel with the study, and test studies run in both directions before any live work.
First live overflow reports
Start with the overflow or with one subspecialty and widen from there. A named operations contact stays with the account.
First signed report within 10 business days of countersignature.
Liability, patient data, and licensure at every site you run.
Liability, and who signs the interpretation
The radiologist who reads the study signs it under their own name and is the physician of record for that interpretation, and every reader on the panel carries professional liability insurance. Credential files are available during procurement so your risk officer can see who is reading before you sign.
Who reads, and who signsData handling, and what your accreditation file needs to show
A signed business associate agreement is a precondition of service. Studies are encrypted in transit and at rest, access is scoped by role and by facility, and every state change on a study lands in an append-only audit log.
Compliance and data handlingState licensure across every location you operate
The panel holds licences in all 50 states, and a study is routed only to a radiologist licensed in the state where it was acquired. Every read happens inside the United States.
How state licensure worksFour pages worth reading before you move a modality.
- Overflow readsAbsorbing the studies your own list cannot reach, on the days it cannot reach them.
- TelemammographyWho reads breast imaging here, how priors are handled, and the turnaround it runs on.
- X-ray and ultrasound overflowThe high-volume, low-margin studies that quietly consume a reading day.
- What teleradiology costs, per readThe market figures, attributed and dated, and the questions that move a quote.
If this is not the right page, the same five questions are answered for a hospital and for a private radiology group, each with the failure mode and the credentialing route for that kind of site. Everything AstraRad publishes about itself, including what it does not hold and does not publish, is on the facts page, and the escalation channels behind the coverage are on the support page.
Start with the studies you least want to read.
Tell us your modality mix and monthly volume. A per-report rate card with turnaround tiers and SLA terms in writing lands within one business day, with no minimum to commit to.
24/7/365 coverage. Every read happens inside the United States.