[toumeray]

Based on the owners posts in other contexts (ie Facebook groups) I suspect this is a churn gig. Sounds like they pay a good hourly rate but my guess is they expect insane volume. The way he talked about having one provider who read 4rvu/hour was as if the guy was reading 10 X-rays and calling it a day. I know 4 is pretty slow, but not super below average daily rate of working 9 hour shifts. Interested to see if any have personal experience.

[alvarezgga1]

They will expect you to crank 25-30 plus rvus an hour. Atleast thats what I ve heard from few folks I know on FB that got more info . Its crazy.

[Unknown Member]

WTF is the deal with the externships??  Teaching anyone “how to read xrays??”

[mgmacielendocrino_912]

Stay away. Crazy high rvu expectations and higher risk of getting sued.

[Patrick]

Is it true they use unlicensed foreign docs to pre-read?

[dzerangel_635]

Yes his scribes are foreign med students. He posts on facebook about how he hates when he the rads hes trying to hire are rate whores. Meanwhile he has no problem skimming off of their work. He lives in Dubai likely to evade taxes but Im not sure how hes able to read cases from there since its not allowed. The whole thing is fishy.

[buckeyeguy]

Quote from rads4meplease

Yes his scribes are foreign med students. He posts on facebook about how he hates when he the rads hes trying to hire are rate whores. Meanwhile he has no problem skimming off of their work. He lives in Dubai likely to evade taxes but Im not sure how hes able to read cases from there since its not allowed. The whole thing is fishy.

 
I wonder what the objection is regarding that term “rate whore” … desiring to be paid according to education, expertise, risk of being sued, and what CMS or private insurers actually pay? LOL, I love these people who try to get away with silly/aggressive terms without being called on it, especially when they are totally retarded and obvious.

[buckeyeguy]

Quote from NYC

Is it true they use unlicensed foreign docs to pre-read?

 
fw usually knows the legal aspects of this kind of stuff well, I wonder if he’d weigh in.
 
If you aren’t signing crazy numbers/fast/impossible numbers of studies, is a predictated report that you sign after looking at the study technically “illegal”? Does it matter that that’s what AI might eventually do, anyway? Is it different that a human does it or that you have a default/macro that is normal that you might sign as such, having reviewed the study? It’s an interesting question.

[Patrick]

1.  I don’t think that using a scribe is illegal if they are really “scribes”.  I just worry about  it being a slippery slope into ghosting, similar to the Norwegian-Romanian case that was shared recently.  I’ll label it “sketchy” until I know more, particularly if the pre-filling “scribe” isn’t even a trained radiologist or US licensed physician.   Let’s be honest, “pre-dictating” is interpretative work (equivalent to practicing medicine on US based patients); it is not the transcription/copy work of of a “scribe” like we see for our EM colleagues. If you are doubling your numbers due to these “scribes”, I find it unlikely that you are giving the images that same level of attention.  If you get a 20% gain, maybe you are doing your normal level review of scans and it is just a productivity enhancer.  Someone will really have to walk me through what is happening with these “scribes”.  I suspect they are not scribes…
 
2.  Dictating from abroad is not in-and-of-itself illegal.  As you and I have discussed, it’s CMS and maybe some private payers that have an issue with it.  Prelims from abroad are still a thing, and maybe some systems have found ways to segregate the Medicare cases.

[mouzaalj_95]

OP, please search for the forums as someone else posted questions about this group too and theres more responses there. I have spoken to this group extensively and here are the details I know as of two months ago-

The group is basically getting rads to cover the Rad Partner groups that have staffing issues, so not only is RP skimming off your work but so is Sami and his business, leaving very little for you. Hes good at marketing by saying things like you get fixed rates and are paid fairly but the volume expectations to get to the 400/hr he always lists is to read for two sites at once with a minimum volume of 25-30 rvu per hour (not cases, which will be higher). This volume is basically not achievable by a human rad, therefore they have scribes.

The way the scribes work are you pay for them (they are not provided to you) at a rate of 15-20 dollars per hour depending on the shift (and thatll probably go up Im sure). The scribes are all med students needing extra money, which means there is likely a big turnover in availability as they go through rotations and graduate, which means youll have to train and retrain new students all the time. Also, they were flaky when I asked if those scribes would be available for these overnight shifts as I doubt busy med students are staying up at 2-3am for a few bucks – I am assuming scribe availability may be an issue for overnights.

Also he frequently posts that he has every shift available in order to get you in the door, when you call all they need is overnight and late evening shifts like every other tele group.

Sami currently lives in Dubai. He makes plenty off this group and does not read very frequently as I understand and spends most of his time getting new contract, posting on Facebook, or marketing to gullible rads. He used to read for a group I did locums for but only did prelims, so Im guessing thats how he gets away with being there. He reads extremely little volume though, and if hes currently using scribes or reading for multiple sites himself I wouldnt be surprised as his quality was noticeably lower than the other prelims we used to get overnight, not sure if this is because of reading too fast or how the scribes work, but the group clearly focuses on quantity over quality – Im assuming a culture like that will trickle to other rads working there and Id be wary of that kind work environment especially for new career rads

When you calculate out how much youre getting per read, basically every other tele gig comes out on top even some of the PE ones. Make sure youre not getting taken by the marketing

Suffice to say I did not and will not be signing with them

[Patrick]

Please, explain what these “scribes do”?  Do they interpret and pre-fill out dictations?  (Example, identify appendicitis and call it in the report).  Or do they just transcribe numbers or reports or correct typos, a la transcriptionist medical scribe?  Or, just hang studies to an individual’s requirements.  Anything in that first category strikes me as highly irregular and to be avoided, especially if the providers are unlicensed in the US…  I’d be curious what CMS or United/Aetna would think?

[mouzaalj_95]

The scribes are just so you can pull up the cases and dictate rapidly, they dont come up with stuff for you (theyre med students who dont know enough clinically), youd have to train them for whatever you want to do to increase efficiency. The way they pitched it you hire two, one on each of two workstations, while you dictate to one, the other is writing up what you said and hanging the next case. Seems like it wouldnt increase efficiency THAT much if you already have good templates

[Patrick]

OK, the case hanging people sound potentially useful, but why use med students?  And, why use med students as transcriptionists? Last I checked VR and off-shore and onshore transcriptionists are a thing?  Oh, wait, they don’t provide a VR platform or something like that???  I am mightily confused.

[buckeyeguy]

I’d be more interested in final reads for non-sweatshop groups with segregated CMS cases.

[Patrick]

Maybe payor type needs to be a DICOM variable

[buckeyeguy]

Quote from NYC

Maybe payor type needs to be a DICOM variable

 
That’d be awesome!!!

[Unknown Member]

Don’t you have to review the reports after the scribe has typed it all out for you?  It’s faster for me to use powerscribe, dictate it, and never look at it again.  

[buckeyeguy]

Quote from striker79

Don’t you have to review the reports after the scribe has typed it all out for you?  It’s faster for me to use powerscribe, dictate it, and never look at it again.  

 
Correct, but depends on your system and how much volume you are doing.