53. Out of Slack: When Radiology Ran Out of Room to Bend

What happens when radiology simply can't read any faster?For nearly a decade, radiologists managed to absorb rising imaging volumes, increasing complexity, and a growing workforce shortage while keeping turnaround times remarkably stable. We worked harder, read faster, picked up more shifts, and squeezed out the slack that once existed in the system. Then something changed.In this episode, Maddi and Jeff are joined by Eric Christensen, PhD from the Neiman Health Policy Institute to discuss new national data suggesting that radiology may have finally reached maximum capacity. We explore why turnaround times suddenly began to climb, what the surprising differences between practice types and sizes might tell us, whether bigger really means more efficient, and whether AI can actually help the workforce problem - or simply allow the system to demand even more from radiologists. Because this isn't really a story about turnaround times. It's about what happens when an increasingly efficient system finally runs out of room to absorb what comes next - and what radiology does from here. Find the full JACR article here: https://www.jacr.org/article/S1546-1440(26)00148-1/fulltext