In a growing number of medical centers across the country, orthopedists are pressing their hospital administrations for the right to bill for film interpretation and to cut the radiologists out of the loop completely. This tendency for radiologists to tap dance their way through orthopedic dictations has not gone unnoticed by the orthopedists. If you are going to bill for the dictation, you should say something intelligent about the film and add some value to the examination. I think that this kind of dictation is a real disservice to the patient, especially if you are charging for it. For some reason, many radiologists freak out when they are faced with reading out films with orthopedic hardware, and will mumble something vague along the lines of “Orthopedic hardware is seen and surgical changes are noted….”, for fear that they will say something dumb and the orthopedists will laugh at them.
