On May 23, 2006 the ACR Council adopted a Revised Statement on the Interpretation of Radiology Images Outside of the United States. The revised statement includes a new paragraph on the practice of "ghost" reporting and calls for facilities to disclose to patients details about the outsourcing of interpretations by teleradiology. The paragraph on "ghost" reporting states that "it is unethical and likely fraudulent for a physician who has not personally interpreted images obtained in a radiologic examination to sign a report or to take attribution of an interpretation of that examination rendered by another physician in a manner that causes the reader of a report to believe that the signing radiologist was the interpreter." The ACR Council also adopted a change in its Bylaws revising the Principles of Ethics to include the following: A physician who has not personally interpreted the images obtained in a radiological examination should not sign a report or take attribution of an interpretation of that examination rendered by another physician in a manner that causes the reader of a report to believe that the signing radiologist was the interpreter.

Read the revised statement at http://www.acr.org/s_acr/doc.asp?CID=541&DID=24137.

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