by
Gus Iversen, Editor in Chief | October 30, 2025
Radiologists whose practices shut down are more likely to transition into subspecialized roles, according to a new study from the Harvey L. Neiman Health Policy Institute.
The findings, published in the
Journal of the American College of Radiology, suggest that practice closures are contributing to a broader trend of subspecialization within the field.
The analysis, which covered nearly 240,000 radiologist-years between 2014 and 2021, found that radiologists who experienced a practice closure were 10% more likely to subsequently work as subspecialists, defined as those whose work is concentrated in areas such as abdominal, breast, cardiothoracic, musculoskeletal, neuroradiology, nuclear medicine, or vascular and interventional radiology.
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“Recent studies have shown that an increasing percentage of radiologists are practicing as subspecialists versus generalists, and that practices with radiologists are consolidating into larger practices that are often multispecialty versus radiology-only,” said Eric Christensen, Ph.D., research director at the Neiman Institute and lead author of the study. “Given these trends, we studied whether these two trends were related. Specifically, if practice closure independently predicts increased subspecialization.”
Elizabeth Rula, Ph.D., executive director of the Neiman Institute, noted that the 10% increase tied to closures is in addition to a general 21% rise in subspecialization seen over the study period, during which the share of subspecialist radiologists grew from 45.6% to 57.0%.
The study also found disparities in subspecialization based on practice geography. Radiologists in practices with at least one rural site were 29% less likely to subspecialize compared to those in urban-only settings.
“Growing subspecialization in medicine has the benefit of advanced expertise for complex care, but it can also cause access challenges for care across more common clinical needs,” said Rula. “Our work to understand how subspecialization intersects with other market and geographic factors is important to prepare the workforce and practices to meet the increasing demands for radiologic care.”
