How Teleradiology Reports Should Be Structured: Findings, Impression and Next Steps

Two reports can contain identical information and be worth very different amounts in practice. The difference is where the conclusion sits.

That single structural decision separates a report the team reads from one it skims. The order below is the one that works, followed by what belongs in each part and how to use a report at the table.

The Order That Works

1. Prioritized diagnoses and recommendations.
2. Comprehensive findings, described systematically.
3. Limitations and suggested additional imaging, where relevant.

This is the structure of a journal abstract, and it is the structure RadsForVets uses on every report.

The order is not stylistic preference. It mirrors how clinical decisions are made: conclusion first, evidence second, caveats third. A report that reverses the order asks a working team to reconstruct the conclusion themselves from the findings, which is the one task they were hoping the report would do.

Prioritized Diagnoses First

The clinician opening a report often has a patient in front of them and a client waiting. Leading with the conclusion means the first thing read is the thing that changes what happens next. More on the reasoning is in impression-on-top reporting.

Prioritized is as important as first. The impression does not list every observation with equal weight; it ranks what matters to the question asked, so the second sentence is already more specific than the first. Recommendations then attach to the ranked findings, which turns the top of the report into a plan rather than a summary.

Comprehensive Findings

Detail is not optional. It supports the conclusion, documents the study for the record, and gives the next clinician a baseline. It simply belongs after the answer, not in front of it.

Good findings sections are systematic: each region described once, negatives included where they bear on the question, measurements given where they matter. This is also the part that earns its keep later, when a case is rechecked and the baseline matters.

Naming the Limits

A report that says what the study could not resolve, and what would resolve it, saves a second round of guessing. Positioning, additional views, or a different modality are all worth stating plainly.

Naming a limit is not a disclaimer; it is a direction. If oblique views would resolve the question, the report says so, and the next submission is better than the last one. Over a few studies this turns the report into part of the practice's learning loop.

Reading One at the Table

Read the top, act, then read the rest. If something is unclear, Real-Time Chat on the case reaches the radiologist in seconds. Around 40% of reports also carry a short video from the radiologist, which is often the fastest way to show a client what the images show.

The video, when there is one, is worth thirty seconds before a client conversation: the radiologist pointing at the frames behind the conclusion is easier to relay than a paragraph of findings, and clients follow it.

Delivering the Report

A well-structured report should not create filing work. Delivery belongs in the same workflow as the rest of the record, which is why injection into the matching radiology order in ezyVet and Instinct matters as much as the writing: the structure arrives intact, in the right place, without re-filing.

Frequently asked questions