Radiology Reporting Preferences: What Do Referring Clinicians Want?

Rationale and objectives: To investigate and discern if preferences and expectations regarding the stylistics of the radiology report varied across roles, specialties, and practice location amongst referring providers.

Materials and methods: A total of 579 referring clinicians were invited to complete our survey electronically and were asked to identify themselves as either physicians or advanced practice providers (APPs), specify their specialty, and primary practice environment. They were asked to rank the three reports on appearance, formatting, level of detail, and overall preference, with additional queries about their preferences regarding literature citation inclusions and placement of dose reduction statements.

Results: 477 surveys were completed and returned for analysis, resulting in an 82.2% response rate. The most preferred reporting style was the blended report (62.5%), followed by the narrative report (18.9%) and the highly templated report (18.7%), respectively. There were no statistically significant differences in the most preferred reporting style between provider types (F(1, 475) = [0.69], p = 0.4067), between different practice settings (F(2, 474) = [2.32], p = 0.0995), and between different medical specialties (F(5, 471) = [2.23], p = 0.051). Among the three report styles, blended reporting received the highest satisfaction scores overall. The highly templated report was rated lowest for appearance and detail, while narrative reports received moderate satisfaction scores for appearance and detail. A majority favored inclusion of literature citations and similarly, the placement of dose-optimization statements at the end of the report. Preferences were consistent across specialties and practice settings.

Conclusion: This survey highlights that a majority of clinicians across a variety of specialties prefer a mix of structured reporting with narrative elements. The standardization of required metrics included in the radiology report may have far-reaching consequences for future reimbursement.