Updates from the Chapter President
May 2024
Dear Fellow IRS Members,
I hope this message finds you well. The Indiana Radiological Society has had a busy couple of weeks and I want to keep you all aware of what has been going on with our organization. In the past two weeks, we have had both our Spring IRS meeting in Indianapolis as well as the annual ACR meeting in Washington DC. Both events went well.
On Saturday, April 6th we had our Spring IRS meeting, held from 11:00-3:00 at the Indianapolis Art Museum at Newfields. Our speaker, Dr. Bill Harrington, was at that time the president (now immediate past president) of the ACR. He gave us 2 excellent lectures, updating us about the ACR and its activities on the national level as well as talking about citizenship in radiology. He also had a great session with our residents and medical students – what a fantastic opportunity for them to network with and talk to the leader of our national organization! Dr Harrington is now retired but was a partner in a small private practice group in Athens, Georgia. He was active in both his state chapter as well as with the ACR on a national level, and eventually ended up serving as its president. He is very interesting, humble, and inspiring – if you ever have the opportunity to speak with him, I promise you will be in for a great conversation!
Immediately following the lectures, we had time to explore the museum and its grounds as well as a cocktail hour at 4:30. Members were invited to bring a guest to visit the museum with them as well as to the happy hour. We have received great feedback from the meeting – the location, time, and speaker all seemed to be much enjoyed! We have already started planning for the fall meeting, so please keep an eye out for the save the date.
April 13 – 17 was the annual ACR meeting in Washington DC. We had six faculty members – 3 from private practice and 3 from IU’s faculty – as well as 6 residents attend. There was a Resident/Fellow Section program with several days of lectures geared specifically to those in training.
While our residents attended their lectures, the faculty attended workshops and talks,
including a workshop for state chapter leadership. I served on a panel for this and took part in some excellent discussions and exchange of ideas regarding best practices at the state level. We came away with some great ideas that can help us improve our organization. However, I have to say, after hearing how some other state chapters function and the challenges they face, the Indiana Radiological Society is doing a great job and was model in some areas for other states!
In addition to the workshops, there was an afternoon of ceremonies as well as an afternoon of elections. New ACR Fellows were inducted into the college. States were awarded State Chapter Recognition Awards – we won the Excellence in Membership Award! We voted on positions for the Board of Chancellors, the Council Steering Committee, and the College Nominating Committee. Our very own Suresh Mukerji ran for a seat on the Steering Committee, and although he did not win this time, he gave an excellent speech and got his name out there for future positions. We are so proud of him!
In other voting news, members/chapters submitted a number of proposed resolutions this past year that were sent out to all members more recently to review (you should have gotten emails from the ACR over the past few months about those). They were presented and discussed in state and regional caucuses (we are part of the Snowbelt Caucus) as well as in the general session and were finally voted on. One of the resolutions that got the most attention and one that will affect all of us, was the question of dues increases. I am happy to discuss the others with you as well – please contact me if you have any questions about the resolutions that were up for discussion. A few details regarding the dues increase are as follows:
Dues Increases – We had several talks that illustrated where the ACR revenue streams come from and how they are utilized. The ACR has not had a dues increase since 2016, and several models are showing a significant shortfall in just a few years if we continue as is. This is after ACR leadership looked at ways to decrease costs (moving journals to digital formats, recently laying off 64 staff members…). The part of the ACR that would suffer the most from the shortfall would be the government relations/advocacy part. This is the part that we really rely on the most at the national level. In the past 3 years the ACR has led a
coalition of multiple physician groups in fighting against CMS-imposed Medicare payment reductions that ended up reclaiming $1.6 million dollars for radiologists, an average of $45,000 per radiologist. Given that the requested dues increase was for a one-time 10% increase (which would add up to $90), this measure passed. Additionally, a renewable option for increasing dues 0-3% annually as needed was also presented to hopefully avoid future big increases such as the 10% that was presented. This resolution also passed.
We ended the meeting with Hill Day at the Capitol. Despite being in the middle of an
impeachment process, we were able to meet with 3 representatives (Buschon from
District 8, Baird from District 4 and Yakym from District 2) as well as with Senator Todd
Young’s office. If you happen to run into any of those Congressmen, please thank them
for taking time to meet with us. The 3 issues that we presented to them were the
importance of a proposed amendment to the Protecting Access to Medicare Act that
would aid with the implementation of the Appropriate Use Criteria (to hopefully decrease
the number of unnecessary advanced imaging studies) as well as several bills that are
aimed to help with the shortage of physicians (including radiologists) in the United
States, and finally a bill regarding physician reimbursement from Medicare, adding a
Medicare Economic Index based inflationary update. If you have any questions about
these, please feel free to contact me for further details.
If you made it all the way to the end of this letter – thank you for your attention. I hope
you all have a great weekend!
Julie Franz, MD
Indiana Radiological Society President
