For referring teams
Know where studies enter, reports return, and urgent questions go.
Referring physicians and staff need four practical answers: how an authorized study enters the reading workflow, how the report returns, which approved route reaches a reader or escalates a critical result, and how prior studies and clinical context are handled.
At a glance
What the ordering clinician can expect
- The imaging facility acquires and routes the authorized study; a radiologist reads it from another location.
- The applicable facility agreement defines the professional interpretation pathway and each party’s responsibilities.
- The public website does not receive orders, images, reports, patient identifiers, or urgent clinical messages.
- Ordering, report delivery, reader contact, and critical-result procedures are specific to each facility workflow.
Physician operational quick reference
Five answers before the details
Ordering
Use the facility’s approved clinical system; this website cannot receive or reprioritize an examination.
02Turnaround
The facility agreement defines routine, urgent, and STAT expectations; this public page makes no numerical promise.
03Report destination
Look in the destination configured for the contracted facility and use its failed-delivery procedure when a report is absent.
04Existing study or urgent question
Use the clinical contacts and escalation tree supplied through the facility’s current operating procedures. Do not use the public planner.
05New non-clinical relationship
Prepare a practice or facility planning brief without patient or study information. The website keeps it on this device and does not send it.
How should an authorized study enter the reading workflow?
Send it through your facility’s approved clinical system. This website is not an ordering portal and cannot receive an exam or change its priority. What has to travel with the study is a short list.
Modality naming, worklist fields, urgency labels, comparison access, and report destinations are agreed between the facility and the reading service before go-live, along with what happens when one of them fails.
Use only the ordering and routing instructions your facility supplies. They differ enough between facilities that a general rule stated here would be wrong somewhere.
- Complete images with correct protected metadata.
- The ordering question and the history behind it.
- The urgency label your facility uses.
- Authorized prior studies, when the facility route makes them available.
How does the report return?
The finalized report should return through the delivery route established with the facility, preserving the ordering team’s normal clinical workflow. The route may involve an existing PACS, RIS, electronic record, interface, or another approved destination, but no specific product is claimed here.
The operating plan should also address preliminary status, amendments or addenda, unavailable prior studies, failed interfaces, and who confirms delivery.
Report delivery, addenda, and failed-delivery procedures follow the facility’s documented operational process.
How should critical findings and reader questions be handled?
Critical findings need a separately documented communication path with responsible contacts, acknowledgement, backup contacts, and escalation. Questions for a reader also need an approved operational channel. Neither function belongs in a public marketing form or a general business email.
The facility agreement defines critical-result communication, acknowledgement, backup contacts, documentation, and downtime escalation.
For an existing study, referring clinicians should use the clinical contact route supplied by their facility.
How are prior studies and clinical context handled?
Authorized priors reach the reader through the route your facility configures. This service does not pull records from outside that route. The history and the clinical question your team enters are what the reader sees. When no comparison was available, the report should say so rather than leave the omission unstated.
A missing prior is a limitation of the read. Naming it in the report tells you the interpretation was made without comparison, which is the difference between a finding described as new and a finding described as unchanged.
If a relevant prior sits somewhere the configured route does not reach, the facility workflow is what makes it available. Put that request in the order and the context field, not in a message to this website.
FAQ
Common questions
Can a physician place an order on this website?
No. Orders must use the approved facility workflow. The public website does not accept orders, images, reports, patient identifiers, or clinical documents.
How do reports reach a referring office?
Reports return through the destination established with the facility. Referring offices should follow the instructions supplied through that facility’s clinical workflow because systems and procedures differ.
Can prior studies be compared?
Authorized prior studies should be available when the facility workflow permits. The report should not imply that priors were reviewed when they were unavailable.
How can a physician reach the reading radiologist?
An approved clinical contact route should be established with the facility. The public contact tool is not appropriate for an existing study or clinical question.
What happens with a critical finding?
The facility agreement should define communication, acknowledgement, backup contacts, escalation, documentation, and downtime handling.
What happens when a prior study is not available?
The report should record that comparison material was unavailable rather than leave the omission unstated. Retrieval of authorized priors follows the route the facility configures.
Can a physician request a subspecialty area?
Study routing can consider modality, anatomy, clinical question, urgency, jurisdiction, and the agreed coverage model. Actual availability remains contract-specific.
Where should a physician send an urgent question?
Use the facility’s approved clinical and escalation contacts. Do not use this site or a general business channel for urgent care communication.
Where DLA Imaging provides reading services under a facility agreement, reports return through the ordering care team’s established workflow. This website does not provide medical advice, diagnoses, or emergency services.