01 Oct California gets landmark radiologist dose reporting law

DiagnosticImaging.com | September 30 – California radiologists will be required to incorporate radiation dose levels in their reports under a measure signed into law Thursday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The measure requires that radiologists include in their reports the dose length product or the CT dose index if the machine is able to calculate it.

Radiologists have never had to do that before, according to Don Stockett, a plaintiff’s attorney who consulted on the measure. He anticipated that other states will follow suit.

“Other states have traditionally followed California’s path, so it would not be surprising to see numerous other states follow the bill, or enact one similar to it,” he said.

“Most of the radiologists never knew what the dosage was because the protocols were never being transferred with PACS to where the radiologist would have seen it,” Stockett said. “The bill requires the protocols on the study to go with the images. That’s something that’s observable to the radiologist now.”

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