How to Compare Veterinary Teleradiology Companies: A Practical Checklist

Most veterinary teleradiology websites describe the same service in the same words. These ten questions surface the differences that show up in daily use.

How to Use the Checklist

Work through the ten questions in order and write down the answer each provider gives. The exercise takes under an hour and produces something more useful than a feature grid: a side-by-side picture of who actually reads the studies, how fast the answer comes back, and what happens when a case raises a question afterward. The differences that matter in daily use rarely appear in the first paragraph of a website.

The Ten-Point Checklist

1. Is every case read by a board-certified radiologist, STAT or not?
2. How many priority levels are offered, and who chooses them?
3. What are the turnaround commitments by modality?
4. Do those commitments hold overnight, on weekends and on holidays?
5. Where does the conclusion sit in the report?
6. How does a clinician reach the radiologist with a follow-up question?
7. Do reports inject into your practice management system automatically?
8. Which modalities and species are covered?
9. What does onboarding involve, and how long does it take?
10. What happens when images are not diagnostic?

The checklist is deliberately weighted toward the first three questions. Certification, priorities and turnaround determine whether the service works; the remaining seven determine how well it fits the practice day to day.

Start With Who Reads the Study

Certification is the floor, not the differentiator. What varies is whether it applies to every case. At RadsForVets every study, whatever the priority, is read by a radiologist certified by the American College of Veterinary Radiology or the European College of Veterinary Diagnostic Imaging.

Verification is straightforward: ask directly whether the same standard applies to Standard-priority and Wet Read cases, and read a sample report for the credentialing language it uses. A clear answer on both tells a practice whether the commitment holds when the clinic is not watching.

Priorities and Turnaround

Two speeds force cases into the wrong box. Three give the clinical team room to match the submission to the situation: Standard within 24 hours, STAT within 1 hour for X-ray and Fluoroscopy and 4 hours for CT, Ultrasound and MR, and Wet Read as the fastest option, read while you wait.

Turnaround commitments should be stated by modality, not as a single blanket promise, because a CT study and a thoracic radiograph carry different work. Species matter here too: exotic patients often carry a best-effort commitment within 24 hours rather than a STAT window, and a practice seeing exotics should ask about that before the first urgent case arrives.

Report Structure

Ask for a sample and time yourself. A report that leads with prioritized diagnoses and recommendations, followed by comprehensive findings, answers the question before you reach the second page.

Two follow-ups sharpen the picture. Ask whether reports can include a short video from the radiologist, which shows the frames behind a conclusion rather than describing them. And ask how a follow-up question travels back to the radiologist once the report is delivered, because the first question a report sparks is rarely the last.

Workflow Fit

The last question is whether the report arrives where the record already lives. Injection into the matching radiology order in ezyVet and Instinct removes a copy-and-paste step from every single case.

Workflow fit also includes onboarding. Setup should cover account configuration, submission from existing equipment and PACS, and report injection where the practice management system supports it, finished within Week One rather than a quarter.

Coverage and Species

Coverage questions are best asked concretely. What happens to a study submitted at 3 AM on a Sunday? Which species are covered, and with what commitment for exotics? The answer should be the same service at the same standard around the clock, because emergencies do not check the calendar before arriving.

A Short Way to Decide

After the checklist, two steps settle most decisions. Read a sample report the way it would be read at the table, timing how long it takes to reach the conclusion. Then submit one real case and judge the experience end to end: submission, communication, report and delivery into the record.

Frequently asked questions