Radiology backlogs are adding another layer of uncertainty for some Pittsburgh-area patients: after an X-ray, CT scan or MRI, they may wait weeks for a report that helps explain what is happening inside their bodies. The delays reflect pressure on both imaging appointments and the specialists who interpret the scans.
Dr. Jerome Scherer, who has Crohn's disease, told CBS Pittsburgh that he waited five weeks for radiology results during a flare-up. He said the delay left him worried about whether his disease was progressing. By the time the imaging was read, the flare had caused a hole in his bowel, and Scherer said earlier interpretation might have prevented the hospitalization that followed.
Scherer isn't just a patient in this story \u2014 he treats them too, and he says he has watched the same delays play out with people he cares for. He described treating a patient in his 60s with an elevated PSA level, a marker that can signal possible prostate cancer, whom he sent for an MRI. The station's report notes that the appointment itself took a month to schedule, and the resulting report took at least five weeks to come back. Scherer said he has had X-rays at Independence Health System, Allegheny Health Network and UPMC and found the experience identical everywhere \u2014 delays he called unacceptable.
Hospitals Point to a Nationwide Radiologist Shortage
Pittsburgh-area hospital systems have attributed the delays to a nationwide shortage of radiologists, per the same account. Allegheny Health Network described the delays as temporary, while UPMC pointed to the same workforce shortage as the cause. Some patients wait several weeks just for an imaging appointment, and radiologists themselves are taking as long as four to six weeks to report certain findings once the scans are complete, according to the report.
What local utilization data can show
The available evidence does not establish whether outpatient CT and MRI use in Allegheny County has increased over time. According to the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council, its quarterly county-level utilization reports track total inpatient hospitalizations and ambulatory or outpatient cases among Pennsylvania residents. Those reports provide an official basis for examining changes in local health-care use, but the information available here does not include a CT- or MRI-specific trend.
That local strain lines up with what national data shows. Outpatient radiology report turnaround times more than doubled between 2014 and 2023, with CT turnaround times surging 318% and MRI turnaround times climbing 256%, according to the Harvey L. Neiman Health Policy Institute. Turnaround times stayed relatively flat through 2021 before entering a sharp climb in 2022 and 2023, the institute found.
Why More Training Slots Haven't Fixed the Backlog
The shortage isn't a passing blip, either. The Neiman Health Policy Institute's research, published in the Journal of the American College of Radiology, projected that the U.S. radiologist supply will grow just 25.7% through 2055 if residency slots stay flat \u2014 barely keeping pace with an expected 16.9% to 26.9% rise in imaging demand driven largely by an aging population. That means the shortage could persist for the next three decades.
Even though U.S. radiology residency slots expanded by 33% between 2010 and 2025, the ratio of practicing radiologists per 100,000 residents barely budged, moving from 11.1 to 11.5, according to AuntMinnie. Population growth and post-COVID attrition offset the new graduates entering the field, even as total medical residency slots overall grew 69% over that same period, outpacing radiology's growth rate. Separately, AuntMinnie has reported that the annual attrition rate among U.S. radiologists climbed from 1.1% in 2014 to 2.5% in 2022, driven by heavy workloads and burnout, with radiology now ranking among the top three medical specialties for physicians' intent to leave.
Portal Rules Add to Patient Anxiety
Part of what makes the wait so stressful, Scherer says, is that patients often see their results before anyone explains them. Federal rules enforcing the 21st Century Cures Act require health systems to post radiology reports to patient portals the moment they're finalized, according to the American Journal of Roentgenology as reported by ITN Online. That has pushed the share of patients who read their scan results before their ordering doctor does from 18.5% up to 44.0%, after federal information-blocking rules eliminated the traditional 36-hour window doctors once had to review results first.
Scherer has said patients need more information about why these delays occur and has urged health systems to address the issue publicly rather than leave patients to manage the uncertainty alone. UPMC told CBS Pittsburgh that it prioritizes urgent readings for patients in critical care and is working with external providers to reduce wait times.
What Hospitals Say They're Doing About It
Allegheny Health Network says it plans to bring in advanced technology and artificial intelligence tools while also working to hire more radiologists, per the CBS Pittsburgh account. The network has said demand for advanced imaging is increasing 3% to 4% annually and tends to peak in the summer months, as reported by CBS Pittsburgh. AHN has also published guidance encouraging referring physicians to reduce unnecessary imaging orders, arguing that cutting down on redundant scans would ease the bottleneck and help necessary images get read sooner, according to Highmark Health.
That approach mirrors a broader push from the American College of Radiology, which encourages doctors nationwide to use its Appropriateness Criteria to guide imaging requests and manage demand rather than relying solely on supply-side fixes, according to AuntMinnie. The workforce strain has operational roots too: a separate AuntMinnie workflow analysis found that practicing radiologists spend nearly 44% of their workday on non-interpretive administrative and compliance duties rather than reading scans, prompting some health systems to turn to software automation to claw back reading time.
The strain extends beyond radiology specifically. The article also considers pressures affecting other parts of health care. In Pennsylvania, federal data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services shows the state's average ER visit runs 3 hours and 6 minutes, 24 minutes longer than the national median and ninth-longest in the country, as noted by WJAC-TV.
On the policy front, the American College of Radiology has published a radiologist workforce update. The reporting mentions Australian doctors interpreting overnight X-rays.
