Recruiting struggles force large hospital to enact a 'drastic reduction' in interventional services

A large Alabama hospital is scaling back its interventional radiology services due to lackluster Medicaid reimbursement rates and issues with recruitment, according to news shared during a recent meeting of the Statewide Trauma and Health Systems Advisory Council. 

DCH Regional Medical Center in Tuscaloosa has implemented a “drastic reduction” in its IR offerings. The state’s fourth largest hospital will no longer provide around-the-clock IR coverage—something physicians at the facility fear will affect patient care. 

“A couple weeks ago, we received an email from our administration that we’ve had a drastic reduction in the availability of interventional radiology services at our hospital,” James Corder, MD, a surgeon at the hospital said during the meeting. “They’re going to be available during the week, but we’ve always had 24/7 coverage, and this is a new change for us. It affects all of our surgical services, especially the trauma services, as well as general surgical services, so we’re obviously upset by that.” 

The hospital houses nearly 600 beds. It is a healthcare hub for the area and its surrounding counties that lack access to quality health services. However, despite its large size, recruiting interventional radiologists to the area has been a challenge, Jackie Jones, assistant radiology director at DCH, told Alabama News Daily. 

“We’re just looking at the fact that there’s a shortage of radiologists nationwide, and they are definitely recruitment issues with trying to get radiologists in to do these services,” Jones said. “So, we ran some statistics for the past year, and the statistics showed that we did not have a large amount of patients that we were doing after hours. Granted, we do want to keep our patients safe, but we wanted to maximize our resources.” 

Corder acknowledged that the new schedule reflects “the new normal” for the hospital’s IR services, suggesting the change may be permanent.   

The struggle to recruit interventional specialists is not unique to DCH. Nationwide, there is a shortage of radiologists in general, and rural areas are particularly vulnerable to physician shortages, especially when it comes to staffing specialists.