The scan itself takes minutes. The wait for a person to read it is the part that stretches.

If you have been through an MRI lately, you know that gap. The machine runs on a Tuesday. The phone rings the following week, if it rings.

That gap has a cause, and the cause is arithmetic. People 65 and over account for about 30% of all imaging in this country every year. The Census Bureau puts 77 million of us at 65 and over by 2034.

Supply on the other side of that ledger barely moves. The country has about 13 radiologists per 100,000 people.

Half the searches for one in 2023 ended without a hire. The average opening sat unfilled 130 days.

Residency seats are set years ahead of the demand. So the supply of readers for 2034 is already spoken for.

The reading is getting done anyway. It is getting done by software.

The FDA has authorized 1,451 medical devices carrying artificial intelligence, counting from 1995 through the end of last year. Radiology holds 1,104 of them. Three out of four.

In the last quarter of 2025 the agency cleared 72 of these. Fifty-five were imaging. That is a new one every day and a half.

The announcements stop at that count. The pathway is the part worth your afternoon.

About 96% of them come through a route called 510(k). The maker shows the device is much like one already sold. No fresh clinical trial is required. Substantial equivalence, and that is the whole standard.

Of the ones cleared in 2024, under a third published both basic accuracy measures. Roughly one in six said anything about who the test patients were.

So how it handles a chest your age is often not on the label. Approved by resemblance to what came before.

The aisle the cohort stands in this quarter is the one the machines reached first.

This one lands on your own calendar. The order gets written in a short office visit, and the read decides what happens next.

Your pictures, sorted by a tool with no name on the report.

Nobody is going to volunteer which one it was. You are allowed to ask.

The arithmetic

Cleared devices: the FDA’s public list of AI-enabled medical devices, updated in 2026 with authorizations through the end of December 2025. It shows 1,451 devices authorized since the agency began the count in 1995, of which 1,104 are radiology, or 76% of the total. In the fourth quarter of 2025 the agency cleared 72, of which 55 were radiology; the one every day and a half is Boomers Trade’s own arithmetic on that quarter. Roughly 96% of authorizations use the 510(k) route, which turns on substantial equivalence to a device already on the market rather than a new clinical trial. Reporting gaps: a 2026 review of the 168 machine-learning devices authorized in 2024 found 29.2% reported both sensitivity and specificity and 15.5% gave demographic data on the test population. Imaging share and workforce: the Radiological Society of North America estimates patients 65 and over account for about 30% of annual imaging; the United States has about 13 radiologists per 100,000 people, with roughly 9 per 100,000 in Nevada, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Wyoming. Hiring: the 2024 Association for Advancing Physician and Provider Recruitment benchmarking report, about half of 2023 radiologist searches unfilled and an average 130 days to fill an opening. Utilization projection: Journal of the American College of Radiology, total imaging use 16.9% to 26.9% above 2023 levels by 2055. Population: Census Bureau projection of 77 million Americans aged 65 and over by 2034.

 

The FDA updates that list a few times a year. Its radiology line only moves one way. Watch it like a hiring notice in your own county. The doctor will still sign your report. The first pass will already be done.

Andrew

Boomers Trade is written by someone getting older right alongside you, and watching who profits from it.